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Parliament special session resumes

The special session of the interim legislature parliament resumed Monday afternoon after two-week recess.

The special session, which was to resume at 11:00 am got delayed by nearly three hours as Speaker Subas Nemwang remained busy in consultations with political leaders in his attempt to facilitate a consensus on the two Maoist demands - fully proportional election system and announcement of republic from the House.

Nemwang held separate meetings with Maoist chairman Prachanda, UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, chief whips of various parties and some legal experts.

The special session will debate the ‘special political proposal’ of the Maoists before arriving at a decision.

As the parties have failed to break the deadlock over the Maoist proposal, the issue is likely to be put for voting after the debate.

On Sunday, too, the last-ditch attempt by seven parties failed to produce any result. Prime Minister GP Koirala asked the Maoists to withdraw their parliamentary proposal, which the latter flatly declined. The PM then said that the issue would be decided through democratic process (or parliamentary voting).

Meanwhile, reports say that the PM could be planning to propose increment in the number of proportional representation seats to 65 percent – up from existing 50 percent. This proposal could be submitted to the Maoists for consideration in the meeting likely to be held on Monday morning.

Earlier, Maoist chairman Prachanda had said that his party could accept increment of PR seats within the existing mixed system if its other demand on republic declaration is met. nepalnews.com mk/sd Oct 29 07