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| Sunday, 1 June 2003 |
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Nepal parties hold crisis talks after royalist PM quits KATHMANDU, Saturday (AFP) Nepal's major parties held marathon talks with King Gyanendra on forming a new government after the royalist premier they shunned suddenly quit, officials said Saturday. Leaders of five parties met for more than two and a half hours overnight with Gyanendra and Crown Prince Paras, their first time in the palace since they launched a protest campaign in April aimed at removing Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand. But political sources said the parties failed to come to a consensus with the king on a new government and that Gyanendra set a 72-hour deadline for them to come up with a name. Nepal has seen a flurry of protests against the king - revered as divine in traditionalist quarters here - since he dismissed elected prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on October 4 for being "incompetent." The major parties, although they also had strained relations with Deuba, were infuriated when Gyanendra sidelined their leaders in favor of Chand, a four-time premier so aligned with Gyanendra he had organized his birthday celebrations last July. On Wednesday the parties - taking advantage of the media spotlight on Nepal for the 50th anniversary of Mount Everest's conquest - declared they were reopening the parliament, which was closed down in May 2002. Chand, speaking to state television overnight, said he resigned Friday to stem the growing unrest. "I resigned mainly to solve the political crisis and find a solution that is in the best interests of Nepal," Chand said.While Chand failed to make peace with the political parties, his government in January reached a ceasefire with Maoist rebels, whose seven-year insurgency to topple the monarchy has left more than 7,800 people dead. "My resignation will in no way harm the ongoing peace negotiations. Instead, I hope it will make them more effective," Chand said. The Maoists say they are waiting for a new government to be formed to see if it will affect the peace process. But Ram Karki, who is close to Maoist chief negotiatior Babu Ram Bhattarai, said a "cosmetic change" would not make any difference to the rebels. The meeting at the palace was attended by ousted premier Deuba and also by his predecessor and arch-rival Girija Prasad Koirala - who was declared speaker of the "parliament session" on Wednesday. A source in Koirala's party, the Nepali Congress, said party leaders before speaking with Gyanendra had held talks at a Kathmandu hotel and floated the name of Madhav Kumar Nepal, the main opposition leader in the dissolved parliament, as the new prime minister. Nepal, head of the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist, declined comment on his political future. "We discussed the present situation with the king and asked him to form an all-party government giving full-fledged rights to the people," Nepal told |
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