Nepal risks political chaos over constitution task
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KATHMANDU — Having won an extension to do in three months what it failed to manage in three years, Nepal’s parliament has only deferred a crisis that threatens the Himalayan nations’s fragile peace process.
Elected in 2008 after a decade of civil war between the government and Maoist insurgents, the 601-member parliament, or Constituent Assembly, was given a two-year mandate to write a new constitution.
But even after a one-year extension granted in 2010, the country’s bickering political parties were unable to reach a consensus on the new charter — meant to pave the way for fresh elections and usher in a new social and political order after centuries of inequality.
Facing a constitutional crisis, political leaders agreed late last month to a further three-month extension and downgraded the task to just hammering out a first draft for the public to see..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110622com10.html
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