Nepal begins voting process on new constitution

Nepal's Constituent Assembly (CA) on Sunday officially started a voting process on the promulgation of a much-awaited new constitution.

Chairman of Nepal's constitution-making body Subhas Nembang announced the clause-wise voting process on the constitution bill at a Sunday night session.

A two-thirds majority is needed to endorse every article of the proposed constitution.

It might take at least four days to complete the voting process at the 601-member parliament, officials at the CA secretariat told Xinhua. The upcoming meeting of the CA is slated for Monday, which resumes the voting process.

This will be the first constitution in Nepal after it became a republic in 2008, ending a 240-year monarchy. The Nepali parties had started working on the new national constitution in 2008, two years after the end of a 10-year conflict between the government and then rebel Maoists that left some 14,000 people dead.

Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, CPN-UML Chairman KP Oli, Unified CPN-Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal Chairman Kamal Thapa and Nepal Workers and Peasants' Party Chairman Narayanman Bijukchhe expressed their commitment to bring forth a new constitution within days.

Nepal has been witnessing deadly clashes over an administrative reform in the new constitution over the past month, resulting in the deaths of 40 protesters.

Nepal's three major political parties - the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist) - agreed to re-divide the country into seven provinces a month ago. However, parties from the southern region of the Himalayan country have been objecting to the draft constitution without their consent. Enditem