Most of the nearly six dozen political parties in the election fray for the Constituent Assembly have made their manifestos public, with polling day now just twenty-three days away. Almost all of them have made republicanism and federalism their principal planks. Those who have made both monarchy and unitary state their main vote-seeking tools are rare exceptions, but they are unimportant. However, a very small number of political parties have made either constitutional monarchy or the existing unitary state structure their chief agendas. But these parties too are very small. What is important is that none of the parties of any influence is carrying the baggage of active monarchy — even the parties of the advocates of power-wielding monarchy in the past. These are among the most important changes that the 10-year Maoist insurgency and the 19-day Jana Andolan have brought about.

As most political parties, including the major SPA partners, have thrown their lot with republicanism and federalism, these changes now seem irreversible. The possibility of any party going back on its pledges on these matters appears thin too. It would be extremely hard to get away with such a reversal of policy, because the others are unlikely to accept. However, in the clarity of their positions on vital issues like those mentioned above, some of the parties may have appeared somewhat vague, leading critics to doubt their sincerity. For instance, the CPN-UML has promised a system based on a directly elected prime minister as chief executive, and the indirectly elected head of state (without specifically mentioning ‘president’) as a ceremonial head. But a pledge of republicanism should be enough in this regard and an issue need not be made out of this lack of mention.

On the president being a ceremonial head, both the Congress and the CPN-UML agree. The same is the case with the prime minister being chief executive —but they differ in the way the head of government is to be elected; the Congress advocates the existing system of election of head of government by the Members of Parliament but the CPN-UML is for his or her direct election. As for the CPN-Maoist, it has proposed direct election of president as chief executive and election of prime minister by the parliament. While debates can go on endlessly on the relative merits of these systems — the main idea behind the direct election of chief executive is based on giving the sovereign people the opportunity to elect directly, seeking to remove the undesirable horse-trading that has been seen in the practice of indirect election, and providing a strong and stable government. In proposing a federal set-up, the CPN-Maoist has provided its model of the federal states, whereas the Congress and the CPN-UML have only laid down the basic principles guiding the formation of states, leaving the rest to the state restructuring panel. While several factors should enter into calculations before deciding on the contours of states, the question of financial viability of the provinces and the centre should rank as one of the critical factors. However, much needs to be worked out on this score.