Nepal party leaders wrangle over cabinet makeup
NEPAL: Top U.S. and Norwegian diplomats were to arrive in
Nepal Tuesday, in the first visit by senior foreign officials since
weeks of bloody protests forced King Gyanendra to return the reins of
government to an elected Parliament.
Members of the new government, however, were still haggling over
positions in the Cabinet. Richard Boucher, U.S. assistant secretary of
state for South and Central Asia, would spend two days in Nepal, the
U.S. Embassy in Katmandu said.
Norway's Development Cooperation Minister Erik Solheim was also
scheduled to arrive Tuesday for a three-day visit, the foreign ministry
said.
No details about the officials' schedules were released, but they are
expected to meet several political leaders, including Prime Minister
Girija Prasad Koirala, who was sworn in for a fifth stint as premier on
Sunday.
The government, meanwhile, was putting the final touches on its
Cabinet line-up which would be announced later Tuesday, according to
Koirala's aides.
Koirala met at his house Monday with leaders of the Himalayan
nation's seven main political parties, which spearheaded three weeks of
demonstrations that forced the monarch to yield control of the
government.
But the expected announcement of the makeup of a new Cabinet kept
getting delayed amid speculation that the parties were jostling for
position as their united front against the king threatened to dissolve
into self-interest.
The politicians did not reach accord on the issue Monday, but did
agree to trim the Cabinet from 34 to about a dozen members, with the
number to be raised later, said Lilamani Pokhrel, a legislator from the
People's Front Nepal.
The change is meant to streamline what has been seen as an
inefficient bureaucracy. Pokhrel's party and the other six members of
the seven-party alliance all are supposed to be represented in the
Cabinet.
Kathmandu, Tuesday AP. |