Maoists Prepare Draft of New Constitution in Nepal
Posted by n3wday on February 28, 2009
This article was published on Nepal News.
Maoists prepares draft of new constitution
The Unified CPN (Maoists) has decided to propose a mixed system with an executive President and a Prime Minister with limited authority to be incorporated in the new constitution.
A task force led by Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai, formed to prepare the draft of the new constitution, made such suggestions. The final draft was prepared by compiling recommendations from various 11 sub-committees formed to submit the suggestions.
In response to Nepali Congress (NC) President Girija Prasad Koirala’s remark that presidential system would invite totalitarianism, Bhattarai said when presidential system is being followed successfully in various other countries including the USA, a mixed system in Nepal would not invite totalitarianism. The main opposition party (NC) has already decided to propose a parliamentary Prime Ministerial system.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary party meeting of the Maoists has instructed its CA members going to various districts to collect public opinion for the new constitution to advocate for Presidential system.
The PP meeting also endorsed the party’s decision to nominate Narayan Kaji Shrestha as the deputy leader of the PP. nepalnews.com ta Feb 25 09
Revolution in South Asia 
Green/Red rev said
This is only to bring to n3wday comrade that the YCL merges posted on March 1st article cannot be read… please mend that….with advanced expression of appreciation, GR
Joseph Ball said
What is happening in Nepal?
To begin with reports about the Maoist’s draft of the new constitution seemed to suggest it was just a standard bourgeois constitution. The English pages of Baburam Bhattarai’s website seem to suggest this.
However, according to the Nepalese bourgeois press the Nepali full text of the draft constitution (also on Bhattarai’s website) states
‘The draft has tried to express commitment to ensure fundamental rights. It has said that except those who foster feudalism and imperialism, all accepting forward looking change are free to form political and other bodies.’ (see http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?nid=182826).
This story is confirmed at another bourgeois site, the depressingly reactionary, virulently misogynist Nepal Telegraph, see
‘http://www.telegraphnepal.com/news_det.php?news_id=4938’
At the same time the bourgeois Nepali press is reporting that the PLA is recruiting new people but there is some doubt that the leadership of the UCPN(M) is in support of this. Of course, we must be very careful about reports in the bourgeois press. It isn’t paranoia to say that they deliberately try to divide the proletariat. Just look at all the anti-immigrant hysteria in the bourgeois press in imperialist countries.
We have to be clear that feudal and imperialist political formations must be suppressed. In a country like Nepal, Western governments typically try to promote pro-feudal and pro-imperialist political forces funding these parties directly, along with media outlets sympathetic to them, using the bribe of ‘aid’ to get parties to support their agenda, threatening sanctions and disinvestment against governments seen as too independent and when all else fails they bomb and invade. In the face of such pressure the proletariat, led by its most advanced section, must exercise dictatorship against the enemy classes to ensure that democracy can exist among the revolutionary classes (proletariat, peasantry, national bourgeoisie etc.)
nando said
joseph ball writes:
Really? I guess it depends what you mean.
For a slave to be free, the slaveowner can’t have “the freedom” to be a slaveowner. But does that mean that all related political formation “must be suppressed”?
I think that the key thing is that feudal and imperialist forces no longer exercise dictatorship — they must be separated from control over the direction and functioning of society (to the degree that is possible)… But to immediately insist that this must mean criminalization across the board is a leap — and one i’m not sure is justified. Must all expressions of desire to return to the old society be forbidden — or can some of them just be debated publicly?
In a country like Nepal, Western governments typically try to promote pro-feudal and pro-imperialist political forces funding these parties directly, along with media outlets sympathetic to them, using the bribe of ‘aid’ to get parties to support their agenda, threatening sanctions and disinvestment against governments seen as too independent and when all else fails they bomb and invade.
Revolution requires new power, and new forces in power. But how much literal criminalization of some politics is needed — doesn’t that depend on time, place and circumstance?