Nepal's major parties agree to adopt federal system

Kathmandu: Nepal's four major political parties on Monday agreed to adopt a federal system in the country with eight provinces, setting aside their differences over the long-pending new constitution in the earthquake-ravaged nation.

With this agreement, the long-standing dispute among the warring parties regarding the issue of new federal structure of the country to be incorporated in the Constitution has finally come to an end.

The top leaders of the ruling and opposition parties held a meeting at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Baluwatar and reached a deal to this effect, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Development and Federal Affairs Prakash Man Singh, who attended the meeting.

In the meeting, the four major parties the Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Terai-based Madhesi Front also decided to give the authority to decide the geographical boundaries of the proposed provinces to the Federal Commission while naming the proposed provinces to the Federal Assembly.

They also agreed to adopt a mixed electoral system, under which 60 per cent of lawmakers would be directly elected through first-past-the-post system and remaining 40 per cent would be elected under the proportional electoral system.

The four parties are scheduled to formalise the agreement in the Monday evening at the Prime Minister's Office, said Nepali Congress sources.

After the deadly quakes that claimed nearly 9,000 lives in the country, the warring political parties had agreed to set aside differences over the long-pending constitution and work towards its early promulgation.

The Constitution writing process had proved to be a cumbersome work for Nepal's ruling and opposition parties. For the last eight years, they vigorously argued their differences.

The division between the parties were mainly on over four issues which include forms of governance, names and number of federal units, electoral system and judicial system.