Dahal plays another card, this time to elect new prez

KATHMANDU, OCT 19 -

UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Thursday proposed that a new presidential vote should be conducted if the Constituent Assembly (CA) is to be elected again.

Dahal, who has been espousing reinstatement of the dissolved CA, met with the Nepali Congress ( NC ) leadership and shared this new roadmap. This new position of the ruling party comes a day after top leaders of the NC and the CPN-UML jointly turned down Dahal’s proposal to promulgate a new constitution by reviving the CA, disbanded on May 27.

Dahal, along with Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, discussed ways to end the ongoing political impasse with NC President Sushil Koirala and NC General Secretary Krishna Prasad Sitaula on Thursday morning. The Maoist leaders told the NC leaders that they were ready for both options: fresh elections or reinstatement.

“The old President will not exist when we elect a new Constituent Assembly ,” the PM’s political advisor Devendra Poudel quoted Dahal as saying. “If we are really going for elections, it should be for a new CA, a new parliament and a new president.”

Dahal’s position comes amid a widening rift between President Ram Baran Yadav and PM Bhattarai and a day before the President ’s all party meeting at Shital Niwas. On Sunday, President Yadav had strongly urged the political parties to decide on a date for elections and a candidate to lead the national consensus government as the CA cannot be revived.

However, NC leaders strongly condemned Dahal’s call for a new presidential election, claiming it was only a bargaining strategy to retain the status quo. NC President Koirala immediately registered an objection to Dahal’s position and questioned whether he [Dahal] had come to invite fresh dispute or an attempt at finding common ground.

“This proposal shows that the Maoists are neither in favour of elections nor committed to deliver the constitution,” a source quoted Koirala as saying. The NC has said it will call a central committee meeting to discuss this “serious” and “mysterious” proposal. NC leader Ram Sharan Mahat said that Dahal’s proposal showed that the Maoists, under no circumstance, were ready for elections. “This is just a bargaining trick and we want to make it clear that such dirty tricks will not work,” said Mahat.

The new proposal has “surprised” many observers and has passed a message that the ruling party could be headed for confrontation with the President if he steps in to unseat the government. Constitutional lawyer Purna Man Shakya said that Article 36 (C) of the Interim Constitution states that the president will continue in office until the CA promulgates a new constitution. “The current president can be removed only if the next Constituent Assembly passes an impeachment motion with two-thirds majority,” said Shakya. “To register an impeachment, there should be charges of serious crimes or gross violations of the constitution,” he added. 

In Thursday’s talks, Dahal reiterated that his party was ready to handover government leadership to the NC to hold elections. He suggested that NC leaders agree on going to elections with a new constitution where the contentious provisions will be referred to the next parliamentary body for arbitration.

Dahal asked the NC and the other parties to join the current Bhattarai-led government if the new CA elections were to be held without the promulgation of the constitution. “National consensus should be on the leadership of the largest party of the country. If there is agreement on the new constitution, we can go for a Congress-led government,” Dahal told reporters. “Otherwise, there should be a national consensus government under the leadership of the UCPN (Maoist) to conduct the next election.”

NC leaders, however, reiterated that they would not join the Bhattarai-led government at any cost. “The prime minister should step down to pave the way for consensus and then parties should sit for dialogue and forge consensus at the earliest,” NC Secretary Situala told reporters after the two-party meeting.

Source: The Kathmandu Post