NEPAL: Nepal citizens prepare to elect an assembly to write a new constitution, with none of the big three parties expected to win a majority

Record ID: 859294

  • Title: NEPAL: Nepal citizens prepare to elect an assembly to write a new constitution, with none of the big three parties expected to win a majority
  • Date: 18th November 2013
  • Summary: KATHMANDU, NEPAL (FILE) (REUTERS) CPN (COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL)-MAOIST GENERAL SECRETARY RAM BAHADUR THAPA SMASHING MOCK BALLOT BOX
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nepal
  • City:
  • Country: Nepal
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVARXIA00HA7JCHNLSXR3K28W5Y
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  • Story Text: Preparations were underway in Nepal Monday (November 18) ahead of an election to appoint new assembly members.
    None of the country's big three parties - the Maoists, the Nepali Congress or the United Marxist Leninist - are expected to win a majority in Tuesday's (November 19) election.
    The new members will aim to write a constitution following the abolition of the 240-year-old feudal monarchy that the Maoists fought against.

    "The main agenda of this election is to draft a new constitution according to people's expectations of the Nepalese people. This is the main task and at the same time we want to focus our attention on economic development," Nepal's Prime Minister Prachanda said.
    A new constitution was widely seen as crucial to ending the instability that has plagued Nepal since the end of a Maoist-led civil war in 2006 and subsequent overthrow of the monarchy, but it has been thwarted by demands for the country to be divided into states along ethnic lines.
    The Himalayan nation, the size of Greece, has lurched from one political crisis to another over the past five years since a first attempt to agree on a charter failed, leaving space for militant groups and criminal gangs to thrive.
    Five governments - two of them headed by the Maoist party - have come and gone as politicians wrangled over the structure of the proposed new republic and how it should be governed.
    Residents on Monday expressed uncertainty, after Chairman of the CPN (Community Party of Nepal)-Maoist, Mohan Baidya said his faction will boycott the election on Tuesday (November 19).

    "There is a little bit of fear somehow amongst the Nepalese people especially because of the boycott by Maoist Party of (CPN-Maoist Chairman Mohan) Baidya's faction," resident Ofprakash Chhetri said.

    "There is still doubt in the drafting the constitution since the Baidya faction has boycotted the election," resident Ambika Khanal added.
    The Maoists want Nepal to be divided into 13 states, responding to the demands of the various ethnic and linguistic groups they mobilised during the civil war.
    The other political parties have opposed this, saying it could unleash ethnic tensions that the monarchy had kept a lid on, and have pressed for the new states to be established along multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious lines.
    Journalist Kunda Dix said he hoped the election will bring a compromise between parties.

    "The best we can hope for is the come down of Maoists and the come up of the so-called democratic parties to the extent that there is a kind of balance of forces that there will be compromise and the compromise should be on the behalf of pluralism, democracy and human rights and the proper definition of federalism in the forthcoming Constituent Assembly," he said.
    Economic growth in Nepal, where nearly a quarter of its 27 million people live below the poverty line, has hovered around 3.5 percent over the past 10 years, much lower than the pace achieved by China and India on its doorstep, forcing many people to seek work abroad.
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