Kathmandu, January 21
The Election Commission has already started procedures to elect 56 National Assembly members and the list of 2,056 votes to cast ballots for their election has been published today. Three other members of the upper House get appointed by the President upon a recommendation from the Cabinet.
But, which Cabinet–whether the incumbent one or the new to be formed after the PM’s elections–is not clear and this confusion is likely to delay the National Assembly formation process further.
It has been learned that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba wants to give the full shape to the National Assembly during his tenure. The CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist Centre, however, view that the new government should appoint them as they have already received the people’s mandate.
Congress leader and Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Yagya Bahadur Thapa says the incumbent government gets dissolved only after giving the full shape to the National Assembly, arguing the bicameral Parliament, which will elect the new government, cannot be complete without it.
UML leader and Chairman of then Constituent Assembly, Subas Chandra Nembang, however, does not agree with Thapa and says absence of three members does not mean that the House is not complete.
He says there is no constitutional hurdle in forming the new government before the appointment of three members as it was the case with the election of other 56 members.
Earlier, the Commission had argued that the National Assembly should be formed at first before announcing the list of proportional representation members of the House of Representatives so that the PR election can compensate if there are not 33 per cent women lawmakers in total.
