Hectic deliberations were still underway between the ruling seven-party alliance (SPA) and the Maoists until late evening at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar to reach final agreement on all outstanding issues including the arms management and modalities of constituent assembly polls.
The meeting that started at around 11:00 a.m. was going on until 11:30 pm as agreement could not be reached on five points of a 15-point report presented by a four-member taskforce. Leaders resumed discussion after dinner at around 9:00 pm.
Points that are yet to be agreed upon include the voting age for constituent assembly polls (Maoists have proposed 16 years as age for voting right while the NC and some SPA members are in favour of the existing 18 years), allocation of seats to the eight parties in the interim parliament and the Maoist demand to mobilise their People’s Liberation Army for the security of their ministers in the proposed interim government.
The UML is said to be sticking to its demand that it should get at least one more seat than the Maoists in the proposed 320-member interim parliament. As per the taskforce’s report, Maoists and the UML will have 73 seats each while the NC and NC (Democratic) will have 75 and 42 seats respectively.
Similarly, agreement is yet to be reached on the election system for constituent assembly polls. While the UML wants proportional representation others are in favour of mixed election system.
NC (D) general secretary Bimalendra Nidhi told reporters that agreement has been for a 409-member constituent assembly. He said the SPA and the Maoists have agreed to manage the Maoist arms under the ‘single lock’ system with UN supervision.
According to Nepali Congress leader Dr Shekhar Koirala, the leaders were working to reach final agreement today itself.
Prime Minister Koirala, Maoist chairman Prachanda, UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, Nepali Congress (Democratic) president Sher Bahadur Deuba, Deputy Prime Minister Amik Sherchan and other senior leaders of the SPA and the CPN (Maoist) are involved in meeting.