This report is issued by the UN RCO with inputs from its UN Field Coordination Offices and other partners and sources. The report covers July 2013. The next report will be issued the first week of September 2013.
Political update
Preparations for the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections scheduled on 19 November remain ongoing despite numerous challenges and unsettled political issues. While many political leaders insist that there is no alternative to completing the process and great political risk if the election date is missed, there are also those who would prefer the elections not to take place within the current conditions, or be postponed to next year.
The task of the election Constituency Delimitation Commission (CDC) is complicated by contradictory provisions of the Interim Constitution which prevent it from altering the number of constituencies in many districts, even as it is supposed to redraw constituencies to reflect population data from the 2011 Census. One member of the CDC has resigned and its deadline has twice been extended. There is considerable political controversy surrounding its work. The CDC is now due to report on 13 August, one week before the Election Commission says constituencies must be fixed if election preparations are to remain on schedule.
Several political parties remain outside the process including the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPNMaoist). The CPN-Maoist has announced plans to disrupt the electoral process; however, attempts at dialogue to bring opposing parties into the process are still ongoing. Meanwhile other dissenting parties, including the Madheshi Janadhikar Forum-Nepal (MJF-N) and Federal Socialist Party (FSP), want to participate but demand that the ratio of seats elected by proportional representation be restored to make the next assembly as ‘inclusive’ as the previous one. This demand is supported by some of the major parties leading the process and an agreement may be possible, although time is short. Madheshi parties in particular are demanding that voter registration be temporarily reopened, because some Nepalis without citizenship papers were earlier prevented from registering.