Special House session

The seven-party alliance has decided to prorogue the special session of the interim parliament after hectic parleys over the week could not resolve the political deadlock over key issues including the declaration of a republic and the voting system for the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections.
Speaker Subhas Chandra Nemwang Tuesday afternoon adjourned the special House session till October 29 acting on request of the parties.
The session was delayed for two days and was expected to resume at 11:00 am today.
After postponing the special House session, the top leaders of the seven parties held a short informal meeting at Baluwatar.
“We took two decisions today,” said Nepali Congress (NC) leader Bimalendra Nidhi. “Firstly, we have decided to urge the Speaker to prorogue the House session till October 29. We also agreed to fix a (new) date for the Constituent Assembly elections at the earliest on the basis of a consensus.”
The latest decision allows the parties to buy more time to resolve the impasse caused by the proposals tabled at the interim parliament by the Maoists.
This session was expected to end rapidly as Dashain, the great Nepali festival, has already started.
This morning, the top leaders of the four major parties had met at Baluwatar to continue their effort to break the stalemate.
After no headway, the top leaders of the NC, CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist and the People’s Front Nepal agreed to postpone the special House session and the leaders of the other parties were invited to formalize the decision.
The meeting had resumed this morning after Monday’s meeting ended inconclusively.
The UML is trying to persuade other parties to forge an agreement on the amendment proposal that it registered at parliament yesterday, sources said.
The leaders have not been able to find a way out of the political impasse, though they agreed to end the deadlock reaching a consensus before voting on the Maoist motions at the special House session, sources added.
If the motions—an immediate declaration of a republic through parliament and proportional representation system for the CA elections- were to be decided through votes, the seven-party alliance could break and the entire peace process could be in jeopardy.
Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala-led NC has outright rejected both the Maoist motions. The motions cannot succeed without NC’s party’s support.
Yesterday, the UML had registered an amendment proposal at the parliament secretariat in a bid to find a middle ground to break the deadlock.
The UML proposal states that the government should first identify the reason why the country failed to conduct the polls on time and announce a new poll date.
It has also urged the government to take immediate and concrete steps to announce a new date, hold the election and proclaim a federal democratic republic, fulfilling all the necessary procedures.
UML registered the amendment proposal at 4:58pm, two minutes before the deadline to lodge an amendment motion ended, after the seven-party meeting failed to reach a conclusion.