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| English: Mr. Baburam bhattarai the 35th Prime Minister of Nepal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I think he is gearing up to take over. That might not be bad news. In India they call it
president's rule when the Governor of a state takes over. Something like that is about to happen in Nepal. The president will take over and lead a cabinet of non political people to conduct elections to a new assembly in April 2013. That is a decent roadmap.
The less controversial step would be the deadline passes and the president says the current
caretaker government is now the election government. That will allow him to pass election related ordinances.
Both are good options. Direct rule by the president until April will not be dictatorial.
The deadline will come and go. And the president will step in.
Nepal President wants consensus Premier in a week
The president has given parties a deadline of November 29, 4 pm, to come up with consensus. ...... Soon after the term of the CA ended on May 27, the president had ‘relieved’ the PM of his ‘post’, on the grounds that he was no longer a member of the legislature-parliament. But the president had asked the PM to continue performing his duties till another government was constituted. ..... this was like the October 4, 2002 move of King Gyanendra when he dismissed an elected PM for failing to hold elections. “The interim constitution does not give the president any such right. He has to act on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, which has the responsibility of finding consensus.”
Prez gives 7-day deadline for parties to find consensus PM
President Yadav had reduced Prime Minister Bhattarai, who announced fresh CA election for November 22, to a caretaker after the CA was dissolved on May 27 as per the Supreme Court verdict. The president´s move comes at a time when the opposition parties have been demanding that the president set a deadline for the parties to form a national consensus government as per the Article 38 (1). ..... the president will have to either pick an independent leader as head of a neutral election government or end the process without any result and let the present government continue ...... it will turn out to a blessing in disguise for Baburam Bhattarai.
EC demands amendment of constitution, laws for election
According to the EC, officials met President Yadav at Seetal Niwas in the evening and Prime Minister Bhattarai in the morning at his office at Singhadurbar and also requested them to fix the exact date for the voting.
The road ahead
Road to prosperity
The acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson, backed by extensive narrative of the last 600 years, writes in his brilliant book Civilization: West and the Rest, that the Western countries, prior to the threshold year 1500, were much behind the civilization of the East. Since then, particularly after renaissance and reformation, the Western civilization developed values based on individual freedom, private property, and rule of law and free trade, which led to its ascendancy over much superior regimes of the East.
