Political consensus: Nepal Presidents initiative fails

Nepal President Rambaran Yadav on Saturday tried to get the three major political parties Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist...

Nepal President Rambaran Yadav on Saturday tried to get the three major political parties Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M),Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) to reach a consensus and elect new Prime Minister,something that Parliament failed to do despite five attempts in two months. However,the meeting of the three party chiefs Prachanda (UCPN-M),Sushil Koirala (NC) and Jhalnath Khanal (UML) ended with the three parting 90 minutes later,and none of them diverging from their rigid stance.

During the meeting,Koirala and Prachanda tried to shout down each other when the Nepali Congress chief accused the Maoists of betraying all of us in the past and said that they did not deserve our support,at least for now. Koirala said this when Prachanda asked them to trust him with the promise that he would sincerely implement past agreements in a time-bound manner.

As long as the Maoists have their own combatants,we cannot allow them to head the government. Once the integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants is settled,we have no problem in Maoists heading it, Koirala said.

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He also asked the Maoists and the UML to lend their support to Ramchandra Poudel,the Nepali Congresss prime ministerial candidate.

Khanal asked both Prachanda and Poudel to agree on one name or withdraw from the race to facilitate a consensual approach on the choice of a new Prime Minister.

Meanwhile,caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Nepal said at a public function on Saturday that the Maoists were out to reinstall monarchy and must clarify their position on the issue.

We cannot support the Maoists when they are against the spirit of the peoples movement of 2006 and are still in possession of a private army, Madhav Nepal said.

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President Yadavs initiative comes as Nepal remains without a Prime Minister for close to two months,since July 1.

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