NEPAL’S MAIN PARTIES FORM A TASKFORCE FOR POLITICAL MECHANISM
(August 1, 2009: nepalnews.com)
Top leaders of Nepali Congress (NC), Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) or CPN-UML, and the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or UCPN (M) have agreed to constitute a taskforce to finalize formation of political mechanism. The taskforce includes two persons from each party.
The discussion among NC President Girija Prasd Koirala, UML chairman Jhala Nath Khanal and Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal held Saturday morning at Koirala’s residence in Maharajgunj agreed to the taskforce.
UML has named its vice chairman Ashok Rai and secretary Bishnu Poudel as representatives to the taskforce while other parties are yet to send their names, NC parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Poudel told reporters after the meeting. The taskforce will workout on structure, working models and responsibilities of the high-level political mechanism within a few days. Once the taskforce submits its recommendation report, formation of political mechanism would start. The leaders have agreed that the mechanism would be led by NC president Koirala.
On Friday, the NC and UML top guns had principally agreed to include smaller parties as well in the political mechanism.
Dahal is learnt to have insisted that the political mechanism should be for determining the future of PLA (People’s Liberation Army) combatants and writing the constitution. Khanal told reporters that the mechanism would have primacy mandate on facilitating the army integration and accelerating the constitution writing process.