President Ram Baran Yadav extended the deadline for the formation of a national consensus government by five days at the request of political parties in the CA on Wednesday.

Yadav had given the parties a week’s time to form a national consensus government after Madhav Nepal resigned as premier last week. However, several rounds of talks failed to yield any results.

An all-party meeting held in the CA building this afternoon concluded that more time was needed to reach an agreement on a consensus government and decided to ask the president to extend the deadline. Senior leaders approached the president with a formal request to extend the deadline in the evening at his office, Shital Niwas.

After meeting with the president, UML chairman Jhalanath Khanal told reporters that the parties would be able to form a consensus government within the extended deadline. “Given the progress made in the past week, we can easily form the government soon,” he said.

However, the political parties have not budged from their respective stances and continue to blame each other for the delay. As the largest party in the CA, the Maoists are claiming they should lead the new government, but the NC and UML in particular are demanding that the Maoists dismantle their army camps before becoming part of a new coalition.

The political parties agreed on consensus politics four years ago, but subsequent majority governments led by the Maoists and then the UML failed to take the peace process any further. If the deadline is missed again, the president can call upon the parliamentary parties to form a majority government as per article 38 of the Interim Constitution. President Ram Baran Yadav extended the deadline for the formation of a national consensus government by five days at the request of political parties.

President Ram Baran Yadav extended the deadline for the formation of a national consensus government by five days at the request of political parties in the CA on Wednesday.

Yadav had given the parties a week’s time to form a national consensus government after Madhav Nepal resigned as premier last week. However, several rounds of talks failed to yield any results.

An all-party meeting held in the CA building this afternoon concluded that more time was needed to reach an agreement on a consensus government and decided to ask the president to extend the deadline. Senior leaders approached the president with a formal request to extend the deadline in the evening at his office, Shital Niwas.

After meeting with the president, UML chairman Jhalanath Khanal told reporters that the parties would be able to form a consensus government within the extended deadline. “Given the progress made in the past week, we can easily form the government soon,” he said.

However, the political parties have not budged from their respective stances and continue to blame each other for the delay. As the largest party in the CA, the Maoists are claiming they should lead the new government, but the NC and UML in particular are demanding that the Maoists dismantle their army camps before becoming part of a new coalition.

The political parties agreed on consensus politics four years ago, but subsequent majority governments led by the Maoists and then the UML failed to take the peace process any further. If the deadline is missed again, the president can call upon the parliamentary parties to form a majority government as per article 38 of the Interim Constitution.