Amidst protest from opposition parties, Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairman Subash Nembang on Sunday announced the formation of a proposal committee to prepare questionnaire on the disputed issues of the new Constitution.
A majority of lawmakers in the CA approved the move by voice vote when the CA Chair made the announcement as per Clause 91 of the CA Rules 2014. Mr. Nembang named 49 members in the 73-member committee. On Friday, when the opposition continued obstruction of the Assembly for the fifth straight day, the Chairman had said Sunday’s CA meet would be a “decisive” one.
The CA chair’s proposal came amidst protests from the alliance of 19 opposition parties in the Assembly led by UCPN (Maoist).
Reacting to the formation of the proposal committee, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala appealed to all to not take the development as victory or defeat and exuded the confidence that the opposition would join the committee.
However, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal condemned the move and accused Mr. Nembang of acting like a CPN-UML cadre. Speaking to mediapersons after leading walk-out of his alliance partners to protest the move, Mr. Dahal vowed to protest against the ruling parties’ decision to enter the process.
The alliance, which met after the Assembly decision also decided not to hold any talks with the government or the CA chair. However, the alliance said it would work with progressive forces to draft a progressive Constitution by the Constituent Assembly.
The proposal committee would meet after five days, ostensibly to give times to parties to reach agreement on the Constitution. It has been given 5 days – from its first meeting – to study the report submitted by the Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (PDCC) headed by Dr. Baburam Bhattarai. The PDCC, despite four extensions, could not resolve the disputes. The new committee has also been tasked to prepare ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions for voting.
This paves the way for drafting the Constitution through the process of voting. The ruling parties have more than the required two-thirds majority to pass the Constitution. The opposition has been maintaining that the statute be drafted through consensus but despite many rounds of dialogue over several months the parties failed to strike consensus, especially on federalism and the model of governance.
