(Updates with government proposes three-month extension of
assembly)
By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU, May 22 (Reuters) – Nepali politicians on Tuesday
proposed to ignore a Supreme Court deadline giving them until
Sunday to draw up a new constitution for the Himalayan republic,
saying they needed more time to agree on the boundaries and
names of new states.
The new constitution is widely seen as crucial to helping
end instability that has plagued Nepal since the end of a
Maoist-led civil war in 2006 and the subsequent overthrow of the
monarchy.
The coalition government formally proposed that the
Constituent Assembly, which doubles as parliament, be given
three more months to try to bridge deep differences that have
forced lawmakers to miss several earlier deadlines.
“We are formally registering a proposal in the parliament
today (Tuesday) seeking a three month extension of the term of
the Constituent Assembly,” Deputy Prime Minister Narayankaji
Shrestha told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
The parliament is almost certain to pass the proposal in a
vote expected before the weekend deadline expires.
The decision to extend the life of the assembly was made on
the last day of a three-day, nationwide strike that closed
thousands of schools, shuttered businesses and forced vehicles
to stay off the roads. There were renewed clashes between
protesters and police in the capital and other towns.
Protesters enforcing the strike were demanding that the
impoverished country be divided into states along ethnic lines
and that the states’ names also be ethnically rooted.
Politicians huddled in a Kathmandu government building
ringed by barbed wire and surrounded by helmeted police with
plastic shields. In other parts of the city and elsewhere in
Nepal, protesters stoned or burned vehicles whose drivers defied
the strike, police spokesman Binod Singh said.
Slightly larger than Greece, Nepal has more than 100 ethnic
groups, many demanding separate provinces. They are backed by
small parties, especially in the southern plains region.
Some analysts said politicians had no choice.
“Under the complex political situation in the country it is
better to extend its life for a period of three months instead
of killing it without producing the constitution,” said Lokraj
Baral, chief of independent think-tank Nepal Centre for
Strategic Studies.
Maoists, who control 40 percent of the 601-seat special
assembly tasked to prepare the constitution, say they want to
create states “recognising ethnic identities” of protesting
groups.
However, Ram Chandra Paudel, a senior leader of the centrist
Nepali Congress party, said the creation of states along ethnic
lines would upset social harmony in a country dependent on aid
and tourism.
“It is a very difficult situation,” Paudel told Reuters. “We
are trying hard to avoid further trouble and reach a consensus.”
(Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Jeremy Laurence)
