News update from Nepal, 29 February 2008 News Update from Nepal 29 February 2008 National Security The government of Nepal has unveiled its three-phase security plan to create a conducive secu­rity environment for the Constituent Assembly(CA) election to draft a new constitution. It has planned to recruit additional 69,700 temporary police and deployed the Special Task Force in four hilly districts of eastern Nepal to prevent ethnic tension and continued operation in violence-prone Tarai districts. But, the human rights of people remain violated in different parts of the country as the supply of basic needs like cooking gas, petrol, food and medicines has been seriously af­fected due to the prolonged turmoil in Tarai and eastern hills. Killing, kidnapping, curfew, explo­sion, violent clashes, rocketing prices of essential goods, load shedding of electricity for eight hours every day, shrinking job opportunities and growing fear have confiscated the state's capac­ity to provide security and rule of law and marked a doubt on the possibility of holding credible, free and fair election by April 10. Development programs are suspended in many districts. On February 22, desperate consumers in Pokhara and Gorkha seized five tankers ferrying petroleum products to Kathmandu despite heavy state security. On February 3, the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wha Kang said,"The consolidation of the peace process will continue to be at risk without political will on the part of the authorities to end the culture of impunity." She cited"security vacuum" as the main cause of communal violence in Tarai, underlined the need for law enforcement agencies to be more representative of the population and lauded the government's decision to appoint Mad­hesi chief district officers in the Tarai region. Election Commission Due to changing political conditions, the Election Commission(EC) has changed the dates for the nomination of candidates three times: first, it gave the dates February 22 to political parties to submit their closed list of candidates for the proportional representation system and February 22 to 25 for registration of candidature for direct voting. Secondly, as per the request of government, it extended the date to February 24 for Madhesi parties to file nomination of candidature and sim­plified the nomination process through fax. Thirdly, following the signing of accord with the United Madhesi Democratic Front(UMDF) it again extended the date to March 6 for filing candidates for First-Past-the-Post(FPTP) and March 2 for the proportional system. Since the government is ne­gotiating with various political groups it might be changed a fourth time. The EC has imposed an election code of conduct from different dates beginning January 16 and recognized 74 political parties for the CA elections. So far, 39 political parties have submitted their closed list of candidates for proportional representation while 33 parties and independents with 2191 candidates have decided to contest 204 seats under the FPTP. This number will increase in the future as the Rastriya Janashakti Party and three factions of the UMDF have also decided to contest the elections. Three major ruling parties- Nepali Congress(NC), Communist Party of Ne­pal Unified Marxist-Leninist(CPN-UML) and Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist)- have filed can­didacies in all constituencies. Top leaders of various parties such as Prachanda, M.K Nepal and Sher B. Deuba are contesting from two places. Premier Koirala is contesting from the party list. 1