简体中文
Learning a painful lesson from the past, there is now a glimmer of hope among the Nepalese people to finally promulgate a new constitution within a year as the country's major political parties have committed to work toward this end.
In their election manifestos, the major parties have expressed firm commitment to draft a new constitution within a year after the composition of the Constituent Assembly (CA). Nepal is holding its second CA election on No. 19. The CA, whose members were elected in 2008, was dissolved last year without promulgating a new constitution.
Nepal is running with an interim constitution promulgated in 2006 and the lack of a new constitution has affected country's political stability and hampered the process of institutionalization of the republic and the adoption of federalism as preferred system of government.
In their election manifestos, the political parties that have decided to participate in the polls have said that the first six months after the opening of the CA will be devoted to forge a consensus to resolve contentious issues relating to the new constitution.
If there will be no consensus, the parties will put to a vote a definite timetable on when to draft a new constitution.
"We will provide a new constitution within a year as there are just few issues left to settle regarding its contents," the UCPN ( Maoist) said in its election manifesto.
During the four years of the existence of the previous CA, the political parties already settled almost 90 percent of the task relating to the crafting of a new constitution, the UCPN (Maoist) said.
Similarly, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, the second and third largest party in the dissolved CA, has also expressed its commitment to deliver a new constitution within a year. The CPN- UML said that if the CA fails to settle some contentious issues within a year, they will ask the people to decide through a referendum.
From 2008 to 2012, Nepal spent a lot of time, effort and money for the drafting a new constitution through CA. But due to continued wrangling among the political parties on the issue of federalism and form of governance, the CA failed to draft a new charter for the country as they have promised.
The CA's failure to draft a new constitution created instability in the country and pessimism among the people. From 2008 to 2012, the political parties formed four governments but most of them lost the public's confidence since they were exercising their power without the benefit of a new constitution.
This time around, realizing their past mistakes, the political parties seemed to be determined in drafting a new constitution within a year after the new CA is formed. In fact, during the campaign the major political parties have apologized to the people for their failure to come up with a new charter for Nepal.
But there are still some doubts about prospects of promulgating a new constitution since the CPN-Maoist, a breakaway faction of UCPN (Maoist), has decided to boycott the Nov. 19 elections.
But most Nepalese political leaders as well as the people are confident that since the three major political parties have participated in the electoral exercise, the crafting of a new constitution this time around will finally become a reality.
