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Kathmandu Tuesday June 26, 2001 Ashadh 12, 2058.
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Prime
Minister calls for national consensus
By Damakant Jayshi
KATHMANDU, June 25 – The first day of the budget
session of parliament saw Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala making a spirited attempt
to consolidate the Prime Minister’s powers while at the same time calling on all
political forces to forge national consensus on several major issues.
Delivering his speech soon after the House of
Representatives convened today to felicitate King Gyanendra and to condole the death of
Royal Family members, Koirala remarked that as Prime Minister it was his duty to
consolidate people’s power and to forge national consensus on major national issues,
besides utilizing all the wings and the units of the government in an effective and
coordinated manner.
Before making this call, PM Koirala read out felicitation
message extended to King Gyanendra for his accession and wished him long life. Similar
messages were read out by Speaker Taranath Ranabhat and leader of the opposition Madhav
Kumar Nepal and other opposition leaders. Similarly, in the second sitting today later in
the afternoon, all of them paid condolences to late King Birendra and his Royal Family
members and friends. The House also observed a three-minute silence as a mark of respect.
The call to consolidate the Prime Minister’s powers
comes in the background of real or perceived erosion in the authority of the nation’s
highest elected office. A sitting Prime Minister today has to think twice before
dissolving parliament due to past rulings of the Supreme Court.
The PM said that he had faced many assaults of different
kinds time and again while trying to uphold the rights and the dignity of the office of
the PM. He added, "Many think that I am fighting to protect my chair when I am facing
the challenges to the Prime Minister’s chair. But today I want to make it clear that
my fight is aimed at protecting the prime ministerial system and not for my personal
sake."
Koirala also pointed out that in the 12 years of the
restoration of democracy, there have been instances of several attacks on the
Constitution, the parliament, the constitutional monarchy and the Judiciary.
While calling for national consensus, the Prime Minister
presented a 14-point agenda as a base to forge national consensus. For this, said the PM,
he was prepared to make "any sacrifice for the greater national cause".
Topping his 14-point agenda was his call to remove
ambiguity over the power of the PM and finding constitutional and legal solutions to the
conflicts arising due to "our attitude and the court’s verdicts". Also high
on his priority was his call to fashion a minimum policy-level understanding to make the
relations between the government and the opposition transparent and better managed.
The Prime Minister laid stress on all-party commitment on
the government’s security and development package and their agreement to the
necessary joint programmes. Another call that is likely to be controversial is his
proposal to ban the strikes and bandhs for 10 years for which he asked the parties’
support. "Let us declare the next decade as a decade of economic
reconstruction."
Speaking on the controversial Citizenship Bill, the PM
asked for agreement to find legal solution to the controversy and the necessary law aimed
at removing any controversy over it. The PM also wants to pass the Bill to control
corruption in this very session. The Bill was tabled in the parliament in the 16th
Session.
In an attempt to solve the problems in the education
sector, let us develop an integrated attitude and an all-party agreement to keep the
educational sector free from political influence, said Koirala. In the similar vein,
Koirala asked the political parties not to affiliate different employees’ and other
organizations with their parties. That the PM was apprehensive about the growing
politicization of government corporations and other organizations was apparent when he
urged the parties to refrain from influencing those bodies and aim at making them more
efficient. Even the government interference must stop, he further said.
The other issues on which Koirala sought political
consensus are in making time-bound programme to implement the land reforms, pass the Bill
on women’s right to ancestral property in order to intensify women empowerment, and
prepare and implement concrete policies to end untouchability, social discrepancies and
exploitation.
Meanwhile, Madhav Kumar Nepal, the General Secretary of the
Communist Party of Nepal (UML), while lauding the Prime Minister’s proposals
"that are worth taking note except a few", remarked that the PM has to match his
proposals with his big heart and prepared for sacrifice for the sake of the nation.
"If you resign, we are ready to cooperate."
He criticized the government’s security and
development package being implemented in the Maoist-hit districts terming the plan
"incomplete". Coming down heavily on the government, he said the government had
failed to improve law and order "that is in shambles". He added that the
executive had attacked the constitutional bodies to render them ineffective.
However, both Surya Bahadur Thapa, President of Rastriya
Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Badri Prasad Mandal, parliamentary leader of the Nepal
Sadbhawana Party (NSP) said it was not the right time to talk about different issues on a
day that was devoted to the new King’s felicitation. "This is not the time for
political bickering," said Mandal, while Thapa remarked that he would speak about the
contentious issues later.
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