Maoist siege gives Nepal budget jitters

KATHMANDU: With only 12 days left for the new Nepal government to table its new budget or face a halt to all financial activities, it is a jittery time for Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, especially with the Maoists vowing to keep up their siege on parliament.
True to their threat, on Friday too they prevented the house from sitting, making it almost two months now that it has been unable to function.Since Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda was forced to resign on May 4, the Maoists have kept up their obstruction of the house, demanding an address by the new premier in the house admitting that the President, Dr Ram Baran Yadav, exceeded his brief by reinstating the army chief they had sacked.
The new government is frantic now because if the obstruction continues, the president will be unable to table the new budget and its new policies.
���We will not allow the house to convene till the prime minister makes an address, putting civil supremacy about the army and clarifying whether the president acted constitutionally,��� Maoist spokesman and legislator Dinanath Sharma said.
The Maoists Friday held a meeting with the fringe parties. They are now scheduled to negotiate with the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, and the Nepali Congress (NC), the biggest party in the ruling alliance.
But time is also running out for the Maoists. Under heavy public criticism for holding up the house and its guerrilla army bridling at the failure to induct them in the army, as had been promised in the peace agreement, the former guerrillas are also looking for a face-saving option.
According to NC leader and former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, Prachanda recently asked him to lead a new national government in which the Maoists would also participate. However, Koirala said he had refused the offer due to his bad health.