President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is meeting CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the President's Office Thursday morning.
President Bhandari has invited Dahal to the Sheetal Niwas to discuss the stuck ordinance on election of the National Assembly and other issues. Dahal reached the President's Office at around 9:30 in the morning, according to sources close to him.
President Bhandari has been consulting different political parties to discuss the ordinance that has stalled the process of formation of the new government. She has already met CPN-UML Chairman KP Oli and Dahal jointly. She then invited Nepali Congress (NC) and then Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN) and Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJP) to discuss the contentious issue.
Formation of the new government has been stalled as President Bhandari is sitting on the ordinance for over two months with the parties divided on whether the election for National Assembly should be held in Single Transferable Vote system or majority system.
PM Deuba had also called an all-party meeting last Friday to end the current political stalemate but that failed to reach any conclusion with the leaders standing firm on their respective stance. The five parties that managed to become a national party through the recent parliamentary elections--CPN-UML, NC, CPN (Maoist Center), RJP and FSFN--were present in the meeting.
RJP and FSFN leaders supported the ordinance sent to the President's Office for authentication during the all-party meeting and insisted that the election for National Assembly should be held in Single Transferable Vote system.
The left alliance has been demanding that the Election Commission (EC) should announce the final results of House of Representatives (HoR) and send that to the President’s Office before formation of the National Assembly.
The government and NC insist that the EC can determine the number of women each party will have to send to the HoR only after formation of the National Assembly.
The next government cannot be formed until the EC sends the final results of HoR to the President’s Office.
