New approach

Both camps now have multiple preconditions to sitting for negotiations. This situation emerged after the parties failed to find a common position on federalism around the January 22 deadline. But the urgency of the matter is such that they must immediately return to the table and begin negotiating on disputed issues, primarily federalism. The best way forward for the parties would be to adopt a new approach to settle contentious issues.

There is no point in renewing another round of meaningless talks among the parties. Instead, parties need to take fresh steps to forge consensus on federalism, as they do not differ much on form of government, electoral system, and judiciary. The best option would be to once again form a high-level State Restructuring Commission, as per provisions in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the Interim Constitution. As state-restructuring is a vital component of Nepal’s peace process, if it is not settled on the basis of consensus among parties, the peace process will remain incomplete.

Though such a commission was formed previously in 2011, instead of incorporating independent people and experts, parties appointed persons close to them, which later gave rise to controversy.

The CPA states that there shall be a progressive restructuring of the state, along with an inclusive, democratic, federal system of government by doing away with the centralised structure of the state so as to end discriminate based on class, caste, language, gender, culture, religion, and region. This historic document has been accepted by all the parties in the current Constituent Assembly (CA), except for the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal. Thus, the formation of such a committee would be the best way as the CPA envisages an expert solution to disputes related to federalism.

Three-month calendar

But first, parties need to come up with a new deadline. They need to prepare a three-month calendar—one month to form the State Restructuring Commission and two months to complete the procedural aspects of constitution promulgation.

This would be the best solution for the ruling parties too, because even if they promulgate a new constitution through a two-thirds majority, disputes on federalism will continue to breed conflict in the country. As the UCPN (Maoist) as well as Janajati constituencies have given up their stance of single ethnic-identity federalism, an expert State Restructuring Commission can settle issues related to the names, number, and demarcation of newly-carved states.

And there are also other components of the peace process which have yet to be addressed. For instance, the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and a Commission on Enforced Disappearance. The UCPN (Maoist), in particular, is more concerned about the TRC. Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal wants to completely settle the TRC issue before the promulgation of the new constitution. He fears that war-era cases could be revived against him and his leaders after the promulgation of the constitution. This implies that if there is

no progress on the TRC, there will not be much progress on constitution drafting from the Maoist side as well. Furthermore, very little has been done with regards to healing the wounds of war through reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Still unaddressed

There are also other components of the peace process that should be addressed without any delay. The integration and rehabilitation of former Maoist combatants was just one component of Nepal’s ongoing peace process, initiated in 2006. But major stakeholders are mistaken if they think that the peace process concluded with army reintegration.   

A totally neglected component of the ongoing peace process has been scientific land reform. The Dahal-led government in 2008 and the Madhav Kumar Nepal government in 2010 formed two separate high-level commissions to undertake scientific land reform, but no concrete policy has yet materialised. The UCPN (Maoist), which raised these issues before and after the peace process, has almost abandoned this agenda. The CPA too states that parties will pursue a policy of implementing scientific land reform by doing away with feudalistic

land ownership.

Democratisation of the Nepal Army was another component of the peace process. In the initial days, the Maoists raised this issue as a political stunt. But the party has now totally abandoned the issue. After the strong opposition from the Army, the parties have remained silent.

Another component in the CPA is the building of a common development concept for the socio-economic transformation of the country, towards making the country prosperous and economically sound. Unfortunately, this agenda has not been discussed in cross-party meetings.

Back to the table

But the immediate challenge is to bring both sides to the negotiation table, as the opposition front is demanding that the Questionnaire Committee be totally scrapped before sitting for dialogue while the ruling parties are refusing to do so. In this context, the parties need to wait till the Questionnaire Committee completes its tasks and submits a report to the Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairperson.

Once the report is submitted, a full House meeting could be put off to buy time for consensus. The preparations of questions has not yet damaged the constitution-drafting process, as even after agreement among the major four political forces—Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, UCPN(Maoist), and Madhes-based parties—such a questionnaire will be required.

 To allow the Committee to conduct its work while holding off on presenting it to the full House would be a win-win formula for both sides. The Questionnaire Committee will accomplish its tasks but the full House will not start an immediate voting process and will wait for the State Restructuring Commission’s report

on federalism.

Bhattarai is with the political desk at the Post