The Constituent Assembly will act as an elected constitution-making body, as a legislature and as the maker of a new head of government and a new president after declaring Nepal a republic at its first meeting. The CPN-UML, at the press conference it held on Sunday after its rout became clear, announced that it had decided to withdraw from the present government immediately, also indicating that it would not join the incoming government “in deference to the people’s wishes”. The Nepali Congress has not made its position clear. However, Maoist leaders Prachanda and Dr Baburam Bhattarai have already discussed with Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala the issue of collaboration between the political parties in forming the next government. For its part, the CPN-Maoist has been stressing the importance of a national government and of conducting politics till the Constitution is drawn up on the basis of consensus.

This spirit should guide the behaviour of the Maoists and the other political parties during the constitution-making days ahead. This is what the Interim Constitution stipulates, and this is what the three main political parties agreed to do just ahead of the CA election. Koirala, Prachanda and CPN-UML leader Madhav Nepal had publicly declared that the government after the CA election would be a national government, no matter which party won a majority. It is expected that the leaders of all the political parties now represented in the CA would be wise enough to respect the message of Jana Andolan II, as well as the later understanding and agreement between them, that they would complete the political transition by working together in a coalition government. The CPN-UML’s expression of its unwillingness to join the next government may have emanated from its desire to give the Maoists a free hand in running the government in view of the clear popular mandate for it, as expressed in the First-Past-the-Post leg of the CA election, and such a gesture would often be appreciated in normal times.

But it fits ill with the present extraordinary situation, and the election is also an extraordinary one, held for a special mission. The new political parties that have a presence in the CA should also be taken into confidence, with an offer of a role in governance. Though the CPN-UML has announced that it will ‘work with a sense of responsibility and cooperation with other parties in the days ahead to draft a new constitution’, responsibility will not be binding without its participation in government. Furthermore, the CA is not a body where we expect the treasury and the opposition benches to exist. Non-participation of either the Congress or the CPN-UML would lead the public to say that it could not reconcile itself to cohabitation unless it were in the dominant position. Finally, in the making of a constitution, on occasions when consensus is not possible, decisions will have to be made by a two-thirds majority. No single party can be expected to enjoy such a majority where proportional representation forms an important part of the electoral system. To facilitate preparing a constitution, there is, therefore, no alternative to a national government.