Kathmandu, Dec 18 (Inditop.com) With Nepal’s government failing to reach an understanding with the former Maoist guerrillas and just five months left for the promulgation of a new constitution, a member of parliament has predicted emergency and military rule in the trouble-torn country from May.
On May 28, 2010 – the day Nepal should install a new constitution written, for the first time, by the people themselves, the ruling alliance will fail to do that and will instead impose military rule and revive the scrapped constitution of 1990, Maoist MP and former information and communications minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara has warned.
The warning comes ahead of a three-day nationwide general strike called by the former insurgents from Dec 20.
The Maoists, who became the biggest party in parliament after ending their 10-year armed revolt and taking part in a historic election last year, say the new constitution – that is being regarded as the centrepiece of the peace agreement they signed with the major parties in 2006 – has dwindled into a farce.
“Feudal, regressive forces who are against change and progress, do not want a new constitution that will decentralise power,” former finance minister and Maoist deputy chief Baburam Bhattarai told Inditop.
“Nowhere in the world do you have the instance of an armed party, that laid down arms, being kept out of power-sharing. There is an attempt to isolate the Maoists. How can you have a people’s constitution when you sideline the largest party that received 40 percent of the votes and got the clear mandate of the people?”
The Maoists allege that the ruling parties are “conspiring” to dissolve the 601-member constituent assembly elected last year and mandated to write the new constitution. They also say the old parties, who include formerly royalist parties, are trying to block the restructuring of the country into federal states, as pledged in the peace pact.
“So we have begun a programme of declaring autonomous people’s states on our own to create public awareness as well as pressure the government into keeping the pledge,” Bhattarai said.
The Maoists envision 13 states in the “new Nepal” and have already declared 12 states with the last one to be announced in the Terai plains along the Indian border Friday.
But the move has been condemned by the ruling parties, who say the unilateral demarcation goes against the peace pact and destroys the need for a new constitution.
While Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has been assuring international donors that Nepal will meet the May 28 deadline, there is growing doubt in his own party.
Jhalanath Khanal, chief of the PM’s Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, Friday created an image of chaos and lawlessness, saying that if the new statute was not enforced by May 28, it would lead to the dissolution of the constituent assembly, which also serves as parliament.
“It would also lead to the dissolution of the post of president (who replaced deposed king Gyanendra as head of state) and would unleash chaos and anarchy,” Khanal warned.
