CHARIOT WITH RATO MACHINDRANATH BEING TOWED WEDNESDAY Kathmandu, 25 April: The chariot with Rato Machindranath, the Goddess of Rain, is being towed from Pulchowk to Patan Wednesday on the first day of a journey to Jawalakhel where the bhoto will be displayed. The jatra is the longest in the Valley to invoke rain. The jatra or the festival is Valley’s last before the onset of monsoon rains. nnnn NT ASKS GOVT.OFFICES TO CLEAR BILLS Kathmandu, 25 April: Nepal Telecom (NT) has asked government offices through a public advertisement to clear its dues. The NT has warned links will be cutoff of dues aren’t settled. The reminder comes after dues pending for a long time were settled by Nepal Electricity Authority and Water Supply Corporation by cutting off connections. Nnnn CAPITAL’S MINIMUM TEMPERATURE 16 DEGREES CELSIUS Kathmandu, 25 April: The minimum temperature recorded Wednesday morning in the capital was 16 degrees Celsius. Mercury is expected to rise to 32 degrees in the afternoon. nnnn MAOIST RECOMMEND MAJORS, CAPTAINS FOR INTEGRATION Kathmandu, 25 April: The People´s Liberation Army (PLA) has decided to recommend brigade commanders and division vice-commanders for the post of major in the Nepal Army during the integration process, Kiran Pun writes in Republica. As per the decision taken on Tuesday, the PLA has also decided to recommend brigade vice-commanders for the rank of captain in NA. A general staff meeting of the PLA on Tuesday took a decision to this effect. "We decided to recommend the commanders for higher ranks like majors and captains. Our commanders will be recommended for higher posts depending on their seniority in the PLA," said Suk Bahadur Roka Magar, commander at the second division. As per the code of conduct endorsed by the Special Committee recently, the combatants opting for integration will have to meet standard norms of the army on an individual basis. PLA sources informed Republica that the Maoist army hopes to get 25-30 posts of major for brigade commanders and 50-60 posts of captain for brigade vice-commanders in the Nepal Army. PLA sources informed Republica that the Maoist army hopes to get 25-30 posts of major for brigade commanders and 50-60 posts of captain for brigade vice-commanders in the Nepal Army. PLA was supposed to get 72 majors, 126 captains and 82 lieutenants had 6,500 combatants opted for integration. But with only 3,129 combatants opting for integration, it is not clear how many senior posts the PLA will be awarded. In the recently concluded categorization process, six out of seven division commanders and seven out of 16 division vice-commanders had opted for integration. According to party sources, Division Vice-commanders Birendra Budha Magar, Ram Jee Thapa and Dal Jeet Shreepali have expressed their willingness to join the army even if they are awarded the post of major. Budha Magar, who is secretary at the PLA headquarters, has worked for a long time as the security chief of party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Shreepali, on the other hand, is the secretary of PLA Sports Club. However, Division Vice-commanders Basudev Ghimire, Hari Bahadur Shrestha and Padam Bahadur Tamang have told the PLA leadership that they will choose integration only if they get the post of lieutenant colonel. Sources said Ghimire is the the only senior PLA combatant from the Baidya faction opting for integration. Similarly, Tamang is the seniormost commander from the eastern region. Likewise, Shrestha is only the senior combatant from the Baburam Bhattarai-led faction. Nnnn 325-member lower house, 60-strong upper agreed Kathmandu, 25 April: After a series of negotiations over the past few days, top leaders from major political parties have reached an understanding on the total strength and form of the federal legislature, Republica reports. As per an understanding reached on Tuesday, the major parties --UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and United Democratic Madhesi Front -- have floated a proposal for a two-tier legislature comprising a total of 325 members in the lower house or House of Representatives and 60 members in an upper house. While 180 of the lower house members will be directly elected, 145 others will come through a proportional electoral system as per a proposal floated by the major parties for a 55:45 ratio between the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system and the proportional representation quota. Likewise, 50 of the total 60 members of the upper house will come from provincial houses and 10 others will be nominated by the president from among eminent personalities. Though there were differing proposals on the number of members in each provincial assembly, such as 35 and 50, the parties are yet to decide on a number. A meeting scheduled for Wednesday is expected to arrive at a consensus on the issue. The major parties had floated the two-tier legislature proposal among the fringe parties represented in the Constituent Assembly during an all-party meeting held Tuesday afternoon and sought their suggestions. Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and top leaders from other parties briefed the leaders from the small political parties. Leaders from the small political parties have, however, expressed their reservations over the proposal tabled by the major parties for reducing the percentage of lawmakers to be elected under the proportional representation system. The Interim Constitution has ensured the election of 58 percent of lawmakers under the proportional system and the CA members were elected accordingly during the CA polls. “We expressed our reservations, finding that it was a regressive proposal, because they have even reduced the percentage for the proportional representative system from the existing ratio, far from increasing it,” Prem Bahadur Singh of Samajbadi Janata Party told Republica. CP Mainali of CPN-ML said a majority of those from small parties airing their views at the meeting stressed that the members to be elected under proportional quota should not be less than 50 percent. On system of governance, the major parties are close to consensus on adopting a mixed system in which executive powers will be shared between a popularly-elected president and a parliament-elected prime minister. “But we alerted the leaders of big parties that such a system may invite unnecessary friction between the head of state and the head of government,” said Mainali. The major parties also informed the other parties about agreements reached on forming a constitutional court for a limited period of five years and about the understanding reached with regard to citizenship. Though the leaders have agreed in principle not to include any provision in the new statute that is discriminatory against women with regard to citizenship, they have also agreed to a seven to nine years residence requirement for a foreigner marrying a Nepali woman, in order to acquire Nepali citizenship. Talking to media persons, NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel said they will hold further discussions on system of governance and federal structure during a meeting of major parties slated for Wednesday morning. “Since the issues are linked to each other we will try to arrive at a consensus on both issues together,” he said. Before the all-party meeting, the Maoists, NC and UML held an internal meeting at the CA building at New Baneshwar to seek the opinions of leaders of the respective parties. NC is scheduled to hold a joint meeting of both its CWC and Parliamentary Party Wednesday to set out a bottom line with regard to federalism and system of governance. A senior NC leader said they will hold discussions on how many federal provinces the NC can accomodate in view of proposals for up to 10 federal provinces against the party’s official stance of six provinces so far. There are also differences on the names of the proposed federal provinces. Nnnn INTERVIEW Kathmandu, 25 April: Negotiations over contentious issues in the new constitution have entered their last leg. As we went to press, there seemed to be agreements on all important issues among major parties except on state restructuring.Speaker Subas Chandra Nembang has called for next CA meeting for April 26, before which, it is hoped, all major issues would have been settled. In this context Thira L Bhusal and Biswas Baral talked to Nembang on the possibility of a constitution by May 27 and the state of ongoing negotiations. Can you give us an overview of the state of constitutional process right now? As of today, political parties have been trying to sort out the issues in the Constitutional Committee´s sub-committee for dispute resolution, both through formal and informal meetings. The next CA meeting has been called for April 26. Political parties have assured they will sort out the issues before that. There is very little time left. Will the CA be able to follow through on its timetable in the remaining time? What we have to keep in mind is that even after the last six-month extension of CA, peace process and constitution making were linked. The major parties were adamant that the peace process be completed before entering negotiations on constitution. This poisoned the atmosphere for negotiations. Thus, for the most of last six months, the constitution making process was completely blocked. In this situation, I have been telling parties we could follow procedures under article 70 of the Interim Constitution. A shorter method has to be adopted as there is no alternative to coming up with the constitution by May 27. When there is an agreement, the CC has to prepare an integrated draft. We have been discussing about how this should be done. The CC has already instructed the CA secretariat to carry on ancillary work on constitution. Various constitutional and legal experts have also been helping with this process. The CA secretariat is ready. Once there are policy-level agreements among parties, they can be implemented without ado. There is a big concern among the people that they might not get enough time to deliberate on and make suggestions on draft constitution. We will take the draft constitution before the people for discussions. No doubt, the larger the number of people we can take the draft to, the more inclusive the final constitution will be. We have planned with a view to taking the draft to the people and getting CA members to visit all 75 districts. So far as the limited time for discussion among the public is concerned, I believe the political parties will be able to sort things out pretty soon so that the time for public discussion can be prolonged. Another common concern is that instead of making the constitution making process truly inclusive, all the major issues are being settled behind closed doors. Since political parties have not been able to come to agreements on time, even our previous work carried out through consultations with the common people has been overshadowed. Throughout the constitution making exercise, we have tried to reach the maximum number of people. The rest of the world has praised this inclusive approach. So far as collecting suggestions from people both at personal and institutional levels is concerned, I am receiving suggestions even today. Every day, we get at least four or five such recommendations. Besides this, we want to take the final draft to the people. Thus it is not that there have been no efforts to include suggestions of common folks. But we are also concerned that the process of collecting suggestions on the final draft might be hampered if the window of available time continues to shrink. There have also been allegations against you that you have failed to take up vital debate in the CA and instead relied on top leaders to settle issues inside closed doors. I think there is a lack of understanding here. The 601-member CA cannot as a single entity take up the whole task of constitution making at one time. This is the reason we divided the CA into various committees which subsequently carried out their respective duties. After a certain point, the whole responsibility for the constitution came to the Constitutional Committee. If we had been able to hammer out needed compromises on time, this question would never have been raised. But as the political parties have failed to come to agreements and these issues remained with the Constitutional Committee for a long time, it might seem the CA members not in the CC have been left out. I believe these debates rise because of the failure to understand the constitutional process and work division among CA members. Without a broad-based agreement, we might get a draft constitution in the next few days, but it will then be a tall order to clear contentious provisions with two-third majority in CA. Still, people seem to have reservation with the process of settling constitutional disputes among top party leaders, many of them unelected, rather by their elected representatives in the CA. We believe in a party-based democracy. That is why we conducted the CA polls on party basis. Even in our documents, we have provisioned for the political process to be taken ahead on party basis. Since the process has to be settled at the political level, it is natural that top leaders are involved in vital discussions. If we are saying that issues which cannot be settled at top political level can be settled through discussions at lower levels, such expectations are unrealistic. We must understand this situation. At the same time, it is also important that political leaders involved in negotiations also do not undermine the integrity and norms of CA. With only a month to go for the expiry of CA deadline, there are speculations that we will, at best, only be able to get a draft constitution by May 27. On May 27, there must be a complete constitution, not just a draft. There is no alternative to this. The Interim Constitution provisions for promulgation of new constitution by the Constitution Assembly in order to consolidate the gains of all pro-democratic movements in the country´s history. The Interim Constitution does not envision a situation where there will be no constitution. Let me reiterate that there is no alternative to the CA promulgating a complete constitution May 27. The political parties must negotiate with this goal in mind. What if there are agreements on major issues but some minor issues are yet to be settled by May 27. Is a limited extension of CA term possible in that case? Look, I am very clear on this. We shouldn´t even think about another CA term extension. One day, we hear that agreements have been reached on important issues but the very next day we hear political leaders say that there have been no agreements. In this context, how hopeful are you that the country will have a complete constitution by May-end? What we have to keep in mind is that there was considerable mistrust among the political parties as the peace process failed to make any headway. But with the process now nearly complete, this distrust has been considerably reduced. In this situation, there is no alternative for the parties but to promulgate the constitution on time. With the peace process nearly over, they have no excuse not to bring out the constitution on time. What happens if there is no agreement on May 27? Will you go for voting in the CA? I don´t foresee such an eventuality. Yes, there might be voting on small issues even while the major ones have been settled. But the political parties have told me that by that time there will be no disagreements on major issues. The goal is to prevent voting on important issues. Without a broad-based agreement, we might still get a draft constitution in the next few days, but it will be a tall order to clear contentious provisions with the required two-third majority in the CA. There can be no such majority without the main political blocks standing on the same platform. The time for taking the draft constitution to the people has been significantly curtailed. Doesn´t that undermine the constitution´s legitimacy? I don´t think questions will be raised on the constitutionality of such a document. Still, I believe that the document should be taken to as wide a population as possible. We aim to take it to the people through national gazette and various media outlets to make people feel ownership of the document. nnnn