The Hindu : National : ‘Nepal must have elections by April’

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Friday, Dec 21, 2007
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‘Nepal must have elections by April’

Special Correspondent

Koirala should honour commitment: Madhav

Madhav Nepal

Kolkata: Madhav Nepal, general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), who played a major role in getting the Nepal Maoists to give up their armed insurrection and join the government, said that he recently turned down a request from the Maoist leadership to replace Girija Prasad Koirala as Prime Minister.

In an exclusive interview to The Hindu here late on Wednesday, he said he told the Maoist leadership “it is not a proper time to ask Mr. Koirala to resign and me to take on the responsibility.”

The request came to him “just before the postponement of the holding of elections to the Constituent Assembly for the second time this year in November,” he said.

“But if the Koirala government fails to keep its commitment this time around and the elections are postponed again, I have made it very clear that Mr. Koirala should take all responsibility and resign,” Mr. Nepal said.

All major parties agreed to the holding of the elections by April 15, 2008, he added.

“We will not tolerate Mr. Koirala if he is seen incapable of holding elections for the third time. We [the six other parties of the ruling alliance that includes the Maoists] will not take the blame,” he said.

“The compulsion before us is that we must have the elections by April next year, after which the new Nepali calendar begins when you will have to update the voters’ list; for which you need several more months during which fresh complications could arise that the elections might have to be deferred indefinitely.

“This cannot be. We have an interim parliament, an interim constitution and an interim government — not a full-fledged one. We are in a transitional phase so elections can’t wait if we have to take Nepal towards becoming a republic with a federal government, and work towards reconstruction of society. The greater the delay, [the longer] feudalism will stay on, uncertainty will increase and the economy of the country will not be able to pick up,” he said.

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