KATHMANDU: Nepali Congress (NC), the oldest democratic party of the country, is now concentrating on its three-day Mahasamiti meeting, that started on Sunday in Kathmandu.

The Mahasamiti is the NC’s second most powerful body after its National General Convention. It can exercise all powers of NGC, except dissolving or forming the Central Committee. The party selects seven NGC representatives from each election constituency. They have voting rights at the NGC.

The party again selects three members from among the seven, who are called Mahasamiti members. All the Mahasamiti members from across the country constitute the Mahasamiti. However, this time, six Mahasamiti members represent each constituency as agreed during the merger of NC and NC (Democratic), two-and-a-half years ago.

They are three, each from NC and the erstwhile NC(D). Out of 1,256 Mahasamiti members, around 1,000 are participating in the meeting. A person must be Mahasamiti member to contest in the CC.

Mahasamiti has right to scrap decisions of the CC.

The meeting, which has to be called once a year, is being convened only after two-and-a-half years.

Agendas

The meeting is regarded as one of the landmarks in the party’s over 60 years of history, since the issues being discussed will have long-term effect. The agendas are:

• Revising the party’s statute

• Making the party’s authentic view on the new constitution

• Assessing the party’s

organisational structure

• Assessing contemporary

politics

Leadership issue

The NC has been practising presidential system in the party. The president is all-powerful and has a sway over the CC and the decision-making process. The president can nominate all office bearers and 50 per cent of the CC members, who generally favour him/her.

The supporters of this model argue that a party can not function well without a strong and powerful leadership. They say the leadership has to be trusted and efforts should be made to make the decision-making process more democratic and transparent. They argue that collective leadership system can not work, as there is power clash at the leadership level.

However, an influential section of the party has been demanding change in the leadership system. They have proposed to specify collective leadership model in the party-statute. It requires election of all office bearers including the president and 80 per cent CC members to form the CC as per the system.

The supporters of this model argue that this model would prevent party president from taking unilateral decisions. It makes the decision-making process democratic and

transparent and leaders responsible towards the voters, as the president does not have complete hold in the CC, as most of its members are elected from NGC. Their demand seems to have been prompted by the trend of taking unilateral decision in the party.