KATHMANDU, Dec 19 - The high-level meeting of the Seven-Party-Alliance (SPA) top leaders that was scheduled to be held Wednesday afternoon to finalise the agreement draft prepared by the SPA Taskforce formed to find ways to end the political deadlock was postponed.
The high-level meeting of the SPA was postponed after the Maoists refused to attend the meeting at Baluwatar saying that without reaching agreement on some of the issues of the draft of the agreement on the seven-party taskforce, the meeting was meaningless.
Leaders of the major political parties including Nepali Congress (NC), UML and People’s Front Nepal had already reached Baluwatar to attend the meeting when the unexpected move from the top brass of the Maoists came.
The NC and Bam Morcha leaders said that although the parties had agreed to discuss over some of the issues on which agreement is yet to be reached, the Maoists had changed their mind lately.
“The top brass of the Maoists informed that the high-level meeting of the political parties would be effective only after a taskforce level and bilateral/trilateral discussions are held to find consensus over some of the issues,†a source said.
“Some issues were left to be decided by the senior level of the major political parties. However as discussions on those issues are yet to conclude, the high-level meeting could not take place today,†a Maoists source informed.
The source added that the high-level meeting would be held after the major parties find a consensus on the unresolved issues including some of the issues in the 20-point agreement drafted by the seven-party taskforce yesterday.
The SPA meeting was expected to publicise the 20-point agreement draft prepared by the taskforce in three days after revising it.
The SPA taskforce had agreed to make the country a federal democratic republic, although the SPA is still undecided regarding the terms dealing with monarchy.
The top leaders were also expected to decide on the issues of choosing new terms removing all the terms relating to King and monarchy and also increasing the number of seats for the CA elections to make 601.
The taskforce had recommended that the 601-member CA be elected through a mixed electoral system in which 335 members are elected through a proportional electoral system, 240 are elected under a first-past-the-post system and 26 nominated by the prime minister.
The amendment proposal registered at the interim parliament has not been able to move forward as the seven parties have not reached a consensus on the issue of electoral system and number of seats for the CA.
On Tuesday, the SPA taskforce prepared a 20-point agreement draft to be tabled at today’s SPA top leaders’ meeting.
The taskforce includes Dr Baburam Bhattarai from the CPN (Maoist), Bimalendra Nidhi from the NC, Bharat Mohan Adhikari from the CPN-UML, Lilamani Pokharel from the PFN, Sunil Prajapati from the NWPP, C P Mainali from the ULF and Sarita Giri from the NSP (Anandidevi).