The smooth selection of the new prime minister has become difficult as Koirala hopes to be a consensus choice, and Prachanda claims that right by virtue of being the leader of the largest party in the House with 220 members, still 81 short of the simple majority in a House of 601. Prachanda, who has not yet been assured of the support of a two-third majority, asserts that the mandate is for him to lead the government. Koirala followers bank on the constitutional provision that he was appointed by consensus, and should continue if Prachanda fails to muster at least a two-third majority in his favour. Some others in the Koirala camp have come forward with a suggestion that a constitutional amendment with the provision that a simple majority in the House should be able to remove the government be made before the hand-over of power to Prachanda.

While all these things are yet to be settled, Koirala has already asked political parties to move forward in the spirit of consensus and ‘enforce’ republicanism by the first meeting of the constituent assembly. He is making this shrewd move to appease the Maoists, and with the king’s exit on the first day, he also hopes to be the first ‘consensus’ acting president if he is to make way for Prachanda as prime minister. The Maoists and Koirala have made several deals in the past, and it will not be a surprise if they strike one more on power-sharing.

But the composition of the constituent assembly is very different from the interim parliament which always acted like a rubber stamp of the three main parties. Of the constituent assembly’s 25 parties, at least one, the Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), with a strength of around 50, has moved swiftly to put its own conditions which will be the basis of its extending support to the new government — first, Koirala should quit, and the new government must implement an earlier accord that it had signed with the MJF giving the entire Terai area the status of one single province with the right to self-determination. This upsets the Maoists’ vision of federalism which is in favour of creating 11 provinces — two based on geographical remoteness and the rest on ethnicity. At the same time, both the Maoists and Koirala realise that neither the House procedure nor the process of forming the new government can move smoothly without MJF support. But the interim constitution was so short-sighted that it failed to foresee that any other party except the ruling seven would be there in the CA.

... contd.