The SPA constituents and the Maoists have taken yet another major stride towards holding the constituent assembly (CA) elections by agreeing on the final version of the interim constitution on Saturday. The eight parties resolved the contentious issue of the monarchy’s interim status by keeping it in a sort of suspended animation, under which the monarchy would exist until its fate is decided by the first meeting of the CA but the King would be without any of the powers enjoyed by him in governance under the 1990 Constitution. The King would not have the status of even a ceremonial king as all functions to be discharged by the head of state would devolve on the Prime Minister. Some of the other important features of the interim statute are: the Prime Minister has been moved to the first, from the ninth, position in the order of precedence, the CA elections would have double ballots, the number of fundamental rights has increased to 23, from 13 before, and the state would be secular but the cow would continue to be the national animal.

This agreement ends all speculation and controversy surrounding the interim constitution. Any debate on it from now on will be of mere academic value. After the political parties have come this far in peacemaking, the restoration of a lasting peace and the establishment of a “total” democracy through the making of a constitution by the representatives of the people are well within reach. But the immediate major problem facing the eight parties is the timing of the promulgation of the interim constitution. The understanding is that it will take place as soon as the UN monitors start work on arms management, i.e., when the process of registration, verification, tagging and storage of the weapons begins. It will take several weeks for the UN monitors to arrive. If promulgation of the statute and the formation of the new goverment are to be delayed accordingly, the CA polls, scheduled for June next year, will have to be postponed for some six months, because the onset of the monsoons will rule out the polls.

Under these circumstances, the idea of stopgap arms management by hiring retired Gurkha soldiers from the Indian and British armies to start work on registration, verification, etc. merits serious consideration as the process ahead is a race against time. The UN monitors, if need be, could go over the work already done again. In fact, after the political forces have come so closer in principle as well as in practice, the linking of promulgation with UN monitors’ work seems redundant in the first place. Arms management has already got well under way — the Maoists combatants have arrived in their temporary cantonments. It is next to impossible now for either side to back out of the agreements. The link-up probably has to do with the government’s compulsion to avoid the displeasure of certain powerful foreign quarters. The main challenge for all the sides, including the UN, is to ensure that the CA poll schedule is not postponed.