The Hindu : Front Page : Nepal King agrees to cede power

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 22, 2006

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Nepal King agrees to cede power

Asks seven-party alliance to name new premier; Opposition says offer is not enough

Kathmandu: Yielding to mass protests, Nepal's King Gyanendra on Friday announced he would hand over the political power he had assumed 14 months ago back to the people and asked the seven-party alliance to name a new Prime Minister. However, the alliance rejected the offer as inadequate.

``Executive power shall from this day be returned to the people,'' the beleaguered King said as tens of thousands of pro-democracy activists virtually laid siege to the capital for the second day defying curfew and shoot-at-sight orders.

The announcement by a grim-faced monarch, in a 10-minute address to the nation on the state-run Nepal Television, came a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy Karan Singh asked him to restore multi-party democracy and hold a dialogue with political parties.

It remains unclear how the transition will take place but the 58-year-old King asked the alliance, spearheading the agitation against him, to recommend at the earliest a name for an interim Prime Minister till the election process is over. Till the new Cabinet is constituted, the present Council of Ministers would continue, said the monarch, who seized executive power after dislodging the elected government of Sher Bahadur Deuba on February one last year. The King said he was returning executive power to the people according to Article 35 of the Constitution.

The King, who gave no dates for holding elections, said that he was committed to multiparty democracy and constitutional monarchy and expressed the hope that peace and order would be restored in the country.

The monarch's announcement came after over two weeks of bitter protests by pro-democracy activists who demanded an end to his rule and restoration of total democracy in the Himalayan kingdom.

The alliance launched a nationwide general strike on April 6. Security forces cracked down on protesters leaving over a dozen of them dead and hundreds wounded.

`Defeat not complete'

Opposition parties dismissed the King's offer as not enough and vowed to carry on protests. ``The King has been defeated but the defeat is not complete,'' said the spokesman for the Nepali Congress-Democratic. ``The message is not sufficient,'' said Minendra Rijal, who speaks for one of the parties in the alliance.

``He says he is giving power to the people but the statement is influenced by his own agenda focussing on general elections. He has given hints that he is bending but actually he is not,'' Mr. Rijal said.

He said ``anything less'' than the elections to a constituent assembly was ``now unacceptable''. ``To make sure that autocracy is completely defeated the movement will go on,'' he vowed.

For the Nepali Congress, the biggest party in the kingdom, the King's address was ``inadequate and ambiguous,'' said deputy general secretary Ram Sharan Mahat. He also said the King was ``sticking to his own roadmap of holding elections.'' ``We will decide about it after the meeting of the alliance on Saturday,'' Mr. Mahat said. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) also agreed. ``The King has not touched the issues raised by the alliance,'' said spokesman Pradeep Nepal. ``Much will depend on Saturday's meeting of the seven-party alliance,'' he added. — PTI, AGENCIES

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