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25 parties submit list of candidates

KATHMANDU: The deadline to submit the final list of candidates to be elected under the proportional representation (PR) system to the Constituent Assembly ended on Friday. All the 25 parties qualified to win at least one seat in the CA submitted lists.

Under the PR, the Maoists have 100 seats, the Nepali Congress 73, the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) 70, the Madhesi People’s Right Forum 22, and the Tarai Madesh Democratic Party 11. The rest will go to the fringe parties, from far-Right to the far-Left.

Among the bigwigs in the PR list are Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, Maoist leaders Mohan Badiya aka Kiran, and Dina Nath Sharma, and NC leaders Pradip Giri and Purna Bahadur Khadka.

The UML, however, decided not to send any of its standing committee members to the CA. Since many of its top guns have been defeated in the direct elections, most of the party’s second generation leaders will have to fill in the leadership vacuum in the CA.

The Election Commission will now ask the parties to make necessary corrections, if any, in their PR list and announce the final names of the 575 members. The Cabinet will nominate the remaining 26 members, taking the total to 601. Since the CA meeting will have to be convened within three weeks of EC’s announcement of the final result, the parties are expected to expedite negotiations for government formation and the political process to abolish the monarchy.

In a clear indication of the U.S. intention towards a rapprochement with the Maoists, who are in its terrorist list, U.S. Ambassador Nancy Powell met Maoist leader Prachanda on Thursday. The meeting came a day before Ms. Powell left for the U.S. to brief her government on the situation here. This is the first-ever meeting between U.S. officials and the Maoist leadership in Nepal.

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