Special session to take up censure of Nepal premier

kathmandu, Dec 17: Nepal's King Birendra today summoned a special session of the Pratinidhi Sabha, lower house of the Nepali bicameral pa...

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kathmandu, Dec 17: Nepal’s King Birendra today summoned a special session of the Pratinidhi Sabha, lower house of the Nepali bicameral parliament, from December 24 to take up an Opposition-sponsored censure of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala.

The move comes after 62 Opposition members in the Pratinidhi Sabha demanded a special session over the prime minister’s recommendation for the dissolution of the House and fresh elections on March 31 next. The requests were make on December eleven while King Birendra was away in the UK recovering from a successful cardiac treatment.

Immediately after his return on December 14, King Birendra got down to intensive consultations with leaders of the various political parties — including premier Koirala and leader of the Opposition and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxists-Leninists) President Manmohan Adhikary, constitutional experts and his own close advisers.

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King Birendra’s decision, announced by the royal palace press secretariat here, has evoked nosurprise. Erstwhile premier Surya Bahadur Thapa’s recommendation in January earlier this year for dissolution of parliament and consequent elections had also been turned down in favour of the Opposition’s requisition for a special session to ensure the Thapa government. King Birendra had on that occasion abided by an advice of the Supreme Court to which he had referred the matter.

Even as King Birendra was conducting his discussions prior to today’s decision, various political parties had been actively planning for the upcoming battle.

Prime Minister Koirala’s Nepali Congress (NC), whose government fell into a minority a week ago when its coalition partner CPN (Marxist-Leninist) pulled out, has already begun negotiations aimed at forming `a national government’ for the next parliamentary polls in the country.

General elections are due in November next when the five-year term of the present Pratinidhi Sabha would expire.

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But the main Opposition CPN(UML), the original propounders of the nationalgovernment idea has been averse to the NC proposal if it meant Koirala stewarding any such mechanism. The party has also firmly declared that it supported the concept only as long as it meant the inclusion of the nationally recognised political parties alone the Nepali Congress, CPN (UML), the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party.

In doing so, it aims to effectively neutralise the future role of its breakaway faction CPN (ML) which has not been accorded the status of a nationally recognised political party.

And in the coming days, it is the CPN (UML) which shall be playing a crucial role in deciding the country’s politics. With 49 members in the Pratinidhi Sabha, the party holds the key to the success or failure of the opposition-sponsored censure motion which requires a constitutionally mandated minimum of 103 votes in the 205 seat house for it to be approved.

The 62 censure-proposers so far comprise the forty-strong CPN (ML) group along with the two RPP factions led by formerpremiers Surya Bahadur Thapa (ten) and Lokendra Bahadur Chand (eight), respectively, as well as the Maoist Kisan Mazdoor Kisan Party (two) and Independents (two). The censure motion will fail to secure passage in the house unless the CPN (UML) votes in its favour.

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The ruling Nepali Congress commands 89 seats in the Pratinidhi Sabha.