UCPN (M) offers Baidya CA seats

• Interlocutors mulling three possibilities

POKHARA/KATHMANDU, NOV 02 -

Just as the CPN-Maoist has intensified its anti-election activities, UNCP (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has floated a proposal to offer the dissenting party 26 seats in the Constituent Assembly (CA) to be formed after the election. As provisioned in the Interim Constitution, the Cabinet formed after the election is entitled to nominate 26 seats in the CA.

Dahal’s proposal comes at a time when a section of the political and civil society leaders are reaching out to the Mohan Baidya-led party with a hope to reach to a breakthrough before the elections.

“We must come up with some ways to address Baidyaji’s demands. If they have some special demands that could be addressed in the new CA,” Dahal told a press conference in Pokhara. “The 26 seats [to be nominated by the Cabinet formed after the election] provide one possible room to address their demands.” According to leaders privy to the ongoing negotiation with the CPN-Maoist, the major political parties are also mulling offering as many as 50 seats to Baidya’s party in the new CA if the latter supports the poll process.

“We have agreed in principle to offer some 50 seats to Baidyaji. This has been discussed with Baidyaji at one level,” said a senior leader. “But since we are busy in our own election campaign, we have not been able to discuss this further with them in detail.”

Sources also say there is another big hurdle to reach an agreement to this effect. “The major parties are hesitant to take a call on this before the election as they see no point in committing 50 seats to the dissenting party when they are not sure how many seats they will win,” said an interlocutor. “For example, if one of the major parties scored only 60 seats or less than what it had expected, the party won’t be ready to offer 50 seats to one that did not even contest the polls.”

According to sources, the other option includes offering Baidya’s party some ministerial berths in the Cabinet to be formed after the polls.

While Baidya has not responded positively to any of these proposals, the interlocutors have not given up hope. “The efforts are on but things are not moving forward due to the strategic dilemma of the CPN-Maoist,” said Bishnu Sapkota, one of the interlocutors engaged in reaching out to the Baidya’s groups. “Given the internal dilemma of the CPN-Maoist, I am not very sure if there could be any breakthrough. However, we are also discussing on possibilities in the post-poll days.” A group of civil society leaders, including Daman Nath Dhungana, Padma Ratna Tuladhar, are in constant conversation with Baidya’s team. Before the deadline to register the parties at the Election Commission expired, the civil society leaders had held the first round of talks with the Baidya-led 33-party alliance. The talks failed mainly because of the differences of opinion within the CPN-Maoist, according to a negotiator. “Baidya’s team was in a dilemma at that time and they don’t seem to have resolved that yet,” he said.

CPN-Maoist leaders, however, blamed the major political parties for lack of progress in the talks. “The major parties have no intention to seek national consensus on writing the new constitution. They don’t want us to be part of the process,” said CPN-Maoist Secretary Dev Gurung. “We have kept all doors open for negotiation.” Sources said the CPN-Maoist is ready to shorten their scheduled general strike to five days from the earlier 10 days if the talks moved in the positive direction.

On Friday, Baidya shared with his party leaders the issues under discussion with the major parties and the civil society leaders. “There have been discussions on various possibilities,” a CPN-Maoist leader quoted Baidya as telling the leaders at the party headquarters in Buddhanagar. “They have offered to provide Cabinet-nominated seats at the CA and to address the major issues in the CA. We are, however, for deferral of the election date.”