Nepal all-party conference on constitution drafting cancelled

A scheduled all-party conference which was expected to provide an impetus to the fragile constitution drafting process of Nepal has been cancelled due to dispute among parties about its agenda, party leaders said Tuesday.

The all-party conference is a much-awaited political development in Nepal and the cancellation is likely to affect the ongoing constitution drafting process, and sour the relations between the ruling parties and the opposition.

The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), led by Mohan Baidya, decided not to attend the meeting, saying the ruling Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) did not fulfill their demands, Xinhua reported.

The all-party conference was called for Tuesday morning but was cancelled at the last minute.

The CPN-M said, along with constitutional issues, issues related to constitution drafting process should be discussed in the conference. But ruling parties took a position that only the issues related to disputed issues of the new constitution should be discussed.

The key purpose of the all-party conference is to bring the CPN-M, which boycotted the Nov 19 Constituent Assembly elections, to the constitution drafting process.

A meeting of the office bearers of the CPN-M decided to skip the all-party conference.

"The all-party conference should be productive but it is going to be just a formality," Dev Gurung, CPN-Maoist secretary, told reporters.

Vice-chairman of the Nepali Congress, Ram Chandra Poudel, said the all-party conference had been cancelled as the CPN-M refused to attend the conference.

"I am not sure there will be such a conference in the near future," Poudel told reporters at the Constituent Assembly building.

Altogether 51 parties were supposed to take part in the all-party conference. Though the Constituent Assembly is making progress on contentious issues, the all-party conference was called to bring all the parties outside the Constituent Assembly to the constitution drafting process.

"The cancellation of the all-party conference is not good for the constitution drafting process," said senior leader of the United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M), Baburam Bhattarai.