Barely hours before the parliament\'s budget session was to end on 18 August, the ruling Nepali Congress Party rammed a watered-down version of a bill that originally sought to make political parties more transparent and accountable.

The opposition was against the bill not because it had been made toothless but because it allowed a party president to nominate up to 50 percent of the party\'s executive body. According to the original draft a party chief would be allowed to nominate only 25 percent of the ex-corn members, but that did not go well with the ruling Nepali Congress. The opposition had gone against the 50 percent clause arguing that it was against the spirit of the constitution. The government\'s position was that the nomination issue was an internal affair of the parties and there was no harm in keeping that flexibility because it did not prohibit parties from electing every member to the executive.

The bill had already been weakened considerably by the ruling party and the opposition working together to delete two important provisions from the original draft. One related to the funding of political parties from the central coffers-at the rate of one rupee per vote to parties securing at least three percent of the total votes-which MPs rejected outright. Another important clause that was thrown out, is one that would have required political parties and politicians to abide by codes issued by the Election Commission from time to time. The original draft gave the Commission authority to even cancel the registration of parties that regularly violated the codes.

One of the few provisions of the bill that remain and can contribute toward making parties more transparent is the requirement to make public their audit reports, including names of contributors that give more than Rs 25,000 to the party.