DELHI, India — Nepal’s president granted political leaders one more week to reach agreement on a new coalition government that would hold elections next year.
“The political parties said they were very much committed to having some conclusion or output with this next week,” Rajendra Dahal, a spokesman for President Ram Baran Yadav of Nepal, said in a telephone interview.
Political leaders have been making such promises for years but have rarely managed to keep them. The immediate problem is that there is little consensus on how elections should be conducted, so none of the parties trust the other to conduct them fairly.
Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, a Maoist, has resisted ceding control even though powerful forces within his own party have pushed for his removal. He has run a caretaker government since May when the term of the constituent assembly that put Mr. Bhattarai in power expired. Mr. Bhattarai’s political opponents have insisted on more equal power sharing.
Many of the political parties agree that there have been fundamental shifts in the electorate since the last election four years ago, which is why elections are so essential. Which parties benefited most from these shifts is fiercely debated.
Mr. Yadav met with the top political leaders in his office on Thursday evening in hopes of brokering a settlement, but none was reached. His agreement to extend his deadline has no teeth to it. If the parties fail to agree by the end of this latest deadline, he will have no choice but to extend it further, Mr. Dahal confirmed.
Nepalese politics are unusually volatile. The country has had seven separate constitutions over the past seven decades, Mr. Dahal said.
Why do the Nepalese have such a hard time agreeing?
“This is the million-dollar question,” Mr. Dahal said. “We have special type of problems, but I think our politicians are very much typical.”
Nepal’s Political Leaders Are Given More Time to Agree on Government http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif
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