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After a protracted deadlock, Nepal's parties have temporarily removed the obstacles crippling the all-important tasks of constitution drafting, cross-party leaders said on Wednesday.
A meeting of Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (PDCC), a key committee responsible for settling disputed issues of new constitution, decided to forward its report to full House Constituent Assembly (CA) as soon as possible.
CA is without any business for the long time as PDCC failed to submit its report owing to the differences among the parties which was resulted in zero progress in constitution drafting.
PDCC was facing difficulties after ruling parties Nepali Congress and CPN-UML registered a joint proposal on contentious issues of the new constitution, asking PDCC to forward it to CA for the purposing of voting, and preparing the first draft of new constitution.
The move was firmly opposed by opposition parties. The opposition parties agreed to forward the joint proposal at full House on the condition that there will not be voting on it.
"We have agreed to forward the report with a condition that there will be discussion on the joint proposal but it will not be tabled for voting," said opposition party leader Gopal Dahit after the meeting of opposition parties.
As ruling parties command two third majority required to draft a new constitution, opposition parties fear that their role could be minimized in statute drafting process. With the agreement, the constitution drafting process is likely to gather momentum.
But, the contentious issues of federalism, forms of government, judiciary and electoral system are yet to be resolved.
Nepal's parties have promised to deliver a new constitution before Jan. 22 but there are still challenges to be overcome to meet the promises.
Of late, parties have started negotiations on the formation of national unity government, stating that it would support the constitution drafting process.
