Parties contend threshold provision

KATHMANDU: Contentions among Nepal’s political parties over provisioning threshold laws in CA election ordinance. UCPN Maoist leader Top Bahadur Raimajhi on Saturday opined that the threshold regulations should be included in the CA election bill while speaking at the Reporters Club Nepal in Kathmandu.

Raimajhi said lack of such laws would negatively impact the party-based politics in the long run at the interaction program presided by Club’s President Rishi Dhamala.

He said such laws will discourage the practice of opening political parties without any public support.

In a different context he suggested that the new CA should have 491 members argueing that the number of the MPs should be determined without adding burden to the national budget.

Commenting on the possible date for the CA elections, he said that the CA elections should be held in November and even said that the CA elections will be held disregarding any political party opting out of it. Referring to the CPN Maoist and its 33 political parties warning of not participating in the elections, Raimajhi said that the CA elections will be held at any cost.

Though Raimajhi said that the present government has no opposition to hinder its objective of holding CA elections, he doubted the President and the Regmi-government’s intentions of holding CA elections.

Speaking at the same program Nepali Congress leader Arjun Narsingh KC accused the UCPN Maoist of averting the CA elections. He said that the activities of the party were against the spirit of holding CA elections and said that the Maoists were trying to foil the CA elections environment by pointing to other political parties agenda.

While stating that the government and major parties should try to bring all dissenting political parties into cofindence for participating in the CA elections, KC said that preparations to hold the elections should be carried out further without succumbing to any pressure from the dissenting political parties.

KC also said that the provisions of threshold should be included in the CA elections bill and that the number of MPs in the new CA elections should not exceed 491.

Speaking at the same interaction program, CPN UML politburo member Bhim Rawal also ruled out any compromise in provisioning threshold laws in the CA elections bill. Terming the whole effort to remove threshold laws as a move towards party less system, Rawal said that such provisions should not be removed at any cost.

However, President of the Rashtriya Madhesh Samajwadi Party, Sharat Singh Bhandari opposed the provisioning of threshold laws in the CA elections bill. He claimed removing threshold laws is important to hold meaningful elections and warned that the CA elections can’t be held if their 13 point demands were not addressed.