‘Drop move to change Ram Baran Yadav’

Parties are divided over the term of the two top posts in Nepal

Vice-President of Nepal Parmananda Jha urged political parties on Monday not to humiliate the first elected President of the country.

Speaking at an interaction programme in the capital, Mr. Jha said that changing the President before the Constitution is promulgated is akin to humiliating him.

He cited a provision in Nepal’s Interim Constitution which says that the President (and the Vice-President) would remain in office until the Constitution is drafted.

Political parties are divided over the term of the two top ceremonial posts, with the largest party in the second Constituent Assembly (CA) leading those in favour of retaining President Ram Baran Yadav and Vice-President Jha until the statute is drafted and the CPN-UML, the second largest party, leading the call for re-election for the two posts.

“We are not interested in staying in the post longer than necessary,” Mr. Jha said. “All we desire is the timely promulgation of the Constitution during our tenure.”

He added that they would leave the post as soon as that happens. Some political parties were unable to finalise the names of candidates under the proportional representation (PR) list.

Deadline

The parties had submitted closed lists some four days before the election to the second CA on November 19.

The Nepali Congress formally asked the Election Commission to extend the deadline for submitting the names by five days. The week-long deadline expires on Tuesday.

Adding to the uncertainty, the UCPN (Maoist) led alliance of about one and a half dozen parties reiterated their demand on Monday for investigation into “election fraud”, failing which, they decided at a meeting on Monday, they would not join the CA.