Associated Press
KATMANDU,
Nepal—Nepal sank into
political turmoil Monday after lawmakers failed to agree on a new constitution,
leaving the country with no legal government. The premier called new elections,
but critics said he lacked the power to do so.
Security forces went on high
alert and riot police patrolled the streets after several political parties
called for rallies to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Baburam
Bhattarai and protest his unilateral decision to call elections for November.
Only a few peaceful protests were reported.
"The country has plunged
into a serious crisis," said Ram Sharan Mahat, a senior leader of the
country's second-largest party, the Nepali Congress, who said that six months would
not be enough time to prepare for new polling.
"This government has no
legitimate grounds to continue," he said.
The squabbling political parties
in Nepal's
Constituent Assembly had failed to agree on a new blueprint for the Himalayan
nation by their own deadline of midnight Sunday, despite repeated extensions of
the due date over the past four years.
A key sticking point was whether
the country's states should be drawn to give regional power bases to ethnic
minorities.
Writing the new constitution was
supposed to cap an interim period aimed at solidifying details of Nepal's
democracy after the country turned the page on centuries of royal rule and
resolved a decadelong Maoist insurgency by bringing the former combatants into
the political mainstream.
Mr. Bhattarai, from the party of
the former Maoists, said the previous constitutional assembly, elected four
years ago, had failed and must be dissolved, and that he would head a caretaker
government until the Nov. 22 elections.
"We have no other option but
to go back to the people and elect a new assembly to write the
constitution," Mr. Bhattarai said in his announcement.
However, his plan immediately
drew criticism from legal experts, who said any plans for new polling should be
made in consultation with the country's other political parties.
"It was politically, legally
and morally incorrect of the prime minister to announce fresh elections,"
said constitutional and legal expert Bhimarjun Acharya.
Police spokesman Binod Singh said
thousands of police officers had been deployed in the capital, Katmandu, and major cities across the country
to stop any violence in the coming days.
At a rally Monday in Katmandu, small groups of
college students burned effigies of Mr. Bhattarai and demanded his resignation.
Police quickly put out the flames.
Separately, a group supporting
the abolished monarchy also demanded the prime minister's resignation, blaming
him for the country's political crisis. Police allowed the demonstrators to
march through the center of Katmandu.
On Sunday, police had clashed
briefly with protesters outside the Constituent Assembly, where political
leaders from the country's four main parties had been meeting in a last-minute
attempt to agree on a new constitution before the deadline.
Much of the debate was over
whether to draw state boundaries in a way to boost the political power of the
country's ethnic minorities.
Nepal's minority ethnic groups and
low-caste communities were overshadowed for centuries by the country's elite.
In the past couple of years, as Nepal has struggled to create a new government,
those divisions have given rise to caste- and ethnic-based politicians, who
insist their long-marginalized communities deserve to live in states that
maximize their influence.
The Constituent Assembly was
elected to a two-year term in 2008 to draft a new constitution but has been
unable to finish the task. Its tenure has been extended four times, but the
Supreme Court rejected any further extensions.
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