Nepal fails to draft constitution before deadline

Nepal's political parties have failed to draft a new constitution before the Jan 22 deadline they set a year ago, Xinhua reported Friday.

Despite repeated attempts, the ruling Nepali Congress and its alliance partner CPN-UML as also the main opposition Unified CPN (Maoist) and a bagful of Madhesh-based parties failed to reach a consensus on issues ranging from federalism, form of government, judiciary and electoral system, which made the constitution elusive.

Ruling and opposition parties have blamed each other for the failure to frame a new constitution.

Ahead of the deadline, relations between the parties in Nepal soured after the opposition went on a rampage at the Constituent Assembly (CA) Tuesday, when assembly chairman Subas Nembang asked the Nepali Congress chief whip Chinkaji Shrestha to form a panel to initiate a voting process for the settlement of the contentious issues.

A dozen security personnel were injured during the chaos.

Nembang warned that if the parties continued to obstruct the parliament, the chances of a new constitution would be over. He said there were no alternatives to settling the contentious issues through voting, in the absence of a consensus.

Senior leader of the Nepali Congress, Sher Bahadur Deuba, confirmed that the parties have failed to reach a consensus with the opposition over the new constitution.

This is a second time that the parties in Nepal failed to deliver a new constitution. The CA elected in 2008 was dissolved in May 2012 without a new charter.

The second CA was elected in 2013 and at its first meeting Jan 21, 2014, it resolved to draft the country's new constitution within a year.

Nepal's parties had agreed to draft a new constitution by signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006, which ended a 10-year-old insurgency.