Twenty of the posts of president of the 23 committees of the Constituent Assembly (CA) and the Legislature-Parliament were elected unopposed, and the remaining three put to vote yesterday. Though the political parties may have bickered, even over petty matters, too much, yet they have been moving in the right direction, though somewhat slowly. The more steps they take in this direction, the more they generate optimism among the general populace that a new constitution will be written, and probably within the set timeframe. It is not of much importance whichever party may have got which committee or committees, or how many - and it is useless as well to debate whether some have got more than they deserved. What is of the central importance is, however, that the spirit of cooperation and commonality of interest must inform the behaviour and actions of the political parties in order to bring the transition period to a successful conclusion. It was a sense of relief that the three big parties — the CPN-Maoist, the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML — finally reached a seat-sharing formula, in addition giving even smaller parties a stake in constitution-making.

This step has increased the responsibility of all the parties represented in the CA, even those holding one or two seats, or even Independent members of the CA, because they have been given a suitable role to play. CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, who held the post of party general-secretary for about fifteen years, has been made president of Constitutional Committee, the main committee for constitution writing, after inducting him into the CA through the UML quota. Nepal’s name won consensus of the major political parties. Under the seat-sharing formula, the Maoists have got seven, the Congress five, the CPN-UML five, the MJF three, the TMDP two, and the RPP one. Various committees of the CA have already started putting out notices, inviting the general public and organisations to send in suggestions on specific topics under their jurisdictions for possible inclusion in the new constitution.

While wider participation in this is highly desirable, an intensive public debate should go side by side. Those charged with making the constitution should carefully pay attention to the suggestions that may be offered at such forums for deliberations on these in the CA and on their possibility of inclusion. Such discussions of issues likely to affect the people should be conducted at various vantage points across the country to enlist the widest-possible people’s participation in writing the constitution. Equally important is the spirit of recognition of one another’s suggestions among the political parties themselves and the perspectives they bring with these. This could go a long way towards reducing the possibility of an unnecessary tug of war between them in the CA over so many issues and towards speeding up the process of writing the constitution. Now, despite all the doubts that have lingered about whether the new constitution will be written, the successful filling of the posts of the heads of the various CA panels is expected to give the real writing process a big boost.