Nepal lawyers move court ahead of ninth PM vote

KATHMANDU - With the vote to elect a new prime minister turning farcical in Nepal, a group of lawyers is asking the Supreme Court to intervene as parliament Thursday goes for an unprecedented ninth round of election.

The apex court is scheduled to hear Wednesday a writ moved by four lawyers and a law student to stop the ongoing prime ministerial election process that allows the race to continue endlessly even with just one contestant in the field.

Lawyers Chandra Kant Gyawali, Raj Kumar Dhakal, Shiv Ram Timilsinha and Bimal Gyawali as well as law student Rajendra Maharnjan have jointly petitioned the Supreme Court to put an end to the ongoing fruitless exercise from which two candidates have already withdrawn.

The petitioners are contending that an election provision which allows a law-maker to abstain from voting is against the constitution, which seeks the formation of a government supported by a majority of parliament members.

More importantly for the ongoing election, they are also asking the court to halt the ninth round of vote to be held Thursday.

Filed Tuesday, the petition will be heard by the court Wednesday if time permits, L.C. Shah, joint registrar at the court, told IANS.

A stay order will come as a shot in the arm for the opposition Maoist party which withdrew its chairman, former revolutionary Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, from the fray this week and announced it would not vote as long as the current procedure prevailed.

The communists, the third largest party in parliament after the Maoists, are also seeking a change in the election process and have pledged to stay neutral till that is effected.

With two of the three largest parties virtually boycotting the election, the lone contestant Ram Chandra Poudel is unlikely to win. To do that, he needs to get 300 votes in the 599-member parliament. But so far, he has not even been able to cross the 150 mark.

Still, his party, the Nepali Congress, said Wednesday it will continue with the exercise till the Maoists gave up violence and fulfilled their peace commitments.

The Nepali Congress position was triggered by fear after the Maoists signed a pact with the communists. The centrist Nepali Congress fears if it agrees to fresh elections, the two will team up to defeat it.

By keeping his hat in the ring, Poudel, though unable to win, can block the party’s rivals from heading the next government.

Though the communists and Maoists have urged parliament chairman Subas Nembang to find a way out of the impasse, he has expressed his inability to intervene unless Poudel withdraws his candidature.

Due to the deadlock, Nepal has remained without a prime minister for three months since Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned in June.

The delay in forming a new government has seen the caretaker government run into a financial crisis as it has been unable to pass the budget.

It has also raised fears that a new constitution will not be ready by May 2011 after it failed the first deadline this year.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)