The deadline set by the Dispute Resolution Sub-Committee under the Constitutional Committee to resolve disputed issues of the constitution writing expired Monday.
The Special Committee on Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist combatants missed the Sunday deadline for finalising the modality of integration and rehabilitation.
The reason for the failure to meet the deadline, in both the cases, was the political consensus as prerequisite for committee to take decisions. What is the point of forming committees and taskforces, if it is the party leadership to decide on disputed issues? The committee concluded that the leadership should reach a consensus first on issues of state restructuring and forms of governance.
The Dispute Resolution Sub-Committee was supposed to submit a draft report on forms of governance and state restructuring to the Constitutional Committee by Monday. The sub-committee held closed discussions without informing media to avoid unnecessary public debate on the issues being discussed. The coordinator of the taskforce, Laxman Lal Karna informed media on Monday that the issues were left for the party leadership to decide.
The taskforce has agreed to propose a mixed model of form of governance having both President and Prime Minister with shared executive authority, where the president will be directly elected from the people and a Prime Minister elected by the parliament. This is a combined of models UML and NC. The UCPN (M) had proposed to have a directly elected President with full executive authority.
“Only after finalising the issue of state restructuring can we be able to resolve other issues such as election system, sharing of power and other political issues,” says Karna. The taskforce has reduced the 78 contentious issues of state restructuring to 25. The remaining task of resolving dispute on forms of governance and sharing of power couldn’t be resolved.
The Special Committee on Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist combatants on June 6 had set Sunday deadline for finalising the modality of integration and rehabilitation, which it missed due to incorporation of the Maoists. It all started when the Maoist hardliners refused to send their security personnel back to cantonment as agreed by party leadership on this process. The internal rift in the UCPN (Maoist) created doubt about whether the army integration could be completed on time. Now, this will have an impact on the overall timeline to conclude the peace process by 27 August as scheduled earlier.
The cross-party committee has entrusted Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal with the responsibility to hold talks with top leaders of political parties to forge consensus on contentious issues of integration. However, NC president has left for the US for regular health check-up for 10 days and the UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal is struggling to fix the fissure that appeared in the party recently.
It is unlikely a breakthrough can be expected before the crucial central committee meeting of the UCPN (Maoist) scheduled for 23 June. The Maoist hardliners are pressurising the party chairman to not make any concession on the integration issue.
The issues of integration modality, number of combatants to be integrated into security forces, norms of integration, rank harmonisation policy and rehabilitation package are some outstanding issues of integration of the Maoist fighters. For this, there is a need of political consensus, which is impossible without willingness of the political parties. Committees and taskforces can do nothing about it. This has been proved many times.
Dewan Rai