This report is issued by the UN RCHCO with inputs from its UN Field Coordination Offices and other partners and sources. The report covers December 2012. The next report will be issued the first week of February 2013.
CONTEXT
Political update
The political situation in Nepal remained deadlocked while UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon issued a statement on 14 December urging the political parties to form a broad-based government ahead of elections. The President had set a deadline for the parties to reach consensus on a Prime Minister candidate, but within the space of a few weeks had extended it six times without any resolution. On his recent six-day official visit to India the President met and updated several senior figures on his efforts to urge Nepal’s political parties to agree on a way forward.
The opposition Nepali Congress (NC) and Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist continued in their demand that Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai resigns in favor of NC President Sushil Koirala. However, the Prime Minister with the support of his coalition partners insists that opposition parties join his Government to prepare for elections in spring 2013. The Prime Minister was widely blamed for blocking consensus, but he and his coalition partners maintained they were willing to make way as soon as the opposition accepted a package of measures that would guarantee spring elections take place. The governing Federal Democratic Republic Alliance (FDRA) coalition proposed several alternative ways forward, including that the next Prime Minister be nominated from the FDRA, appointment of an ‘independent’ or neutral Prime Minister or revival of the dissolved Constituent Assembly. The opposition rejected these proposals.
As a result of the protracted stalemate several constitutional bodies and the judiciary faced increasing challenges as the urgently needed appointment of commissioners and judges requires consensus amongst the parties which, in turn, is linked to the settlement of other issues. The government finalized the working procedures for granting pardons which state that war crimes and crimes against humanity and intentional killings are not pardonable. This will have implications in transitional justice cases that have already come under the regular justice system.