The United Nations today convened a meeting between the Maoist leadership and the international donor community, UNMIN and UN agencies, to discuss international support to Nepal’s ongoing peace process. Maoist Chairman Prachanda and Dr Baburam Bhattarai represented the Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist) in a meeting attended by ambassadors, as well as heads of development cooperation agencies and heads of UN agencies. Ian Martin, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal, and Robert Piper, the UN Resident Coordinator led the meeting for the United Nations.
At a short media interaction after the meeting, Maoist chairman Prachanda said that from the interaction “we came to realise that everyone’s view and concern was that as soon as possible durable peace should be established in Nepal, and Nepal should head in the direction of development by writing the Constitution in a smooth and proper manner.” Prachanda affirmed that “we are committed to peace and democracy, and to writing the Constitution and establishing a federal republic.” Focussing on his party’s policies, Prachanda told journalists that “we will implement inclusiveness, to provide education, health to women and children and even among those, mainly women and Dalits.”
Questioned on Maoist policy as the peace process moves forward, Prachanda said that “we want to lead this peace process to a logical conclusion and we want to create a model of peace.”
On the future of UNMIN, Prachanda said that the Maoists are “discussing with other political parties whether or not UNMIN’s tenure should be extended now that the Constituent Assembly election has been conducted and an atmosphere of political stability has been established in the country.” He added that parties aimed to reach a conclusion on this issue “prior to the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly,” adding that “we have positively evaluated the work of UNMIN.”
Robert Piper, the new UN Resident Coordinator responsible for humanitarian and development work in Nepal, noted that the meeting had covered a lot of ground in a short time, emphasising that cross-cutting all the issues discussed, “we talked about peace and the relationship between peace and development.”
Nepal’s Election Commission declared counting completed overnight, while it is yet to declare final seat allocation for the 335 seats to be allotted according to the proportional representation vote. In addition to their 120 seats (50 per cent) won through the first-past-the-post vote, the Maoists won 29.28 per cent of the PR vote. The EC will announce final seat allocation Friday afternoon for the 601-seat assembly.
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Publisher:
UNMIN
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(2008
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Type / Script:
Press Release
in English
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Keywords:
LEADERSHIP, COMMUNIST PARTY, PEACE PROCESS, POLITICAL STABILITY, PEACE, FEDERAL PUBLIC, MONETARY POLICY, POLITICAL PARTIES, POLITICAL CONDITIONS, FEDERALISM, POLITICAL SYSTEMS, EDUCATION
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Thematic Group:
UNMIN
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Peace and Conflict through Political Mission
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Thesaurus:
01.01.00
- Political Conditions, Institutions, Movements
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Reference Link:
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