Now, the government will probably initiate dialogue with other political parties to advance the ordinance and other bills. If this happens, not only ordinances and laws will be made, but it will also help to strengthen parliamentary practice.
In politics, sometimes self-praise and self-promotion are in the sky, but the ground is weak. Currently, the ruling party has reached a similar situation. In particular, the ruling party is under extraordinary pressure to approve six ordinances issued by the government for discussion in the parliament.
The ruling party has a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament, but it is struggling to get a simple majority in the National Assembly. Especially if there is no support from Jaspa Nepal, which is not in the government and is neglected by the ruling party, there is a possibility that the ordinance brought by the government will become inactive without even entering the discussion stage.
This is the first shock for the ruling party which has been made with a roadmap to amend the constitution and has been ignoring the opposition. The Ordinance case has shown that the government does not have the facility to ignore the opposition, the way ahead can be smooth only through dialogue and consensus. In the background of the formation of the current power coalition, the issue of constitutional amendment was the main issue in the agreement reached by Congress-UML on June 17. They were of the opinion that any work would be easier when two big parties meet.
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli took the vote of confidence from the House of Representatives on July 6, and the ruling party was also excited after two-thirds of the votes were lost. After that, it seemed to those who listened to the statements made by the responsible leaders of the ruling party - as if the country's future roadmap including the amendment of the constitution would be successful with the help of the ruling coalition. With this psychology, they were trying to move forward only through the mechanism of the ruling party, not through public dialogue.
They were in the mindset of solving the problem by amending the constitution and laws, blaming all the political instability and distortions on small parties. The government also pushed the Parliament session and issued 6 ordinances. According to the rules of parliament, those ordinances have been submitted in the first meeting of both houses. Although there is a clear majority in favor of the government in the House of Representatives, the future of the ordinance is still in doubt because it is not in the National Assembly.
When the parliament is not in session, there is a constitutional provision that the government can introduce laws if it deems it necessary, but it has to be passed as a replacement bill within 60 days of the commencement of the parliament. However, for discussion, both the Houses must pass a resolution that the ordinance be 'approved', for which a majority is also mandatory. However, this proposal has been removed from the agenda of Thursday's meeting as the proposal is likely to fail.
In public speech, the self-absorbed ruling party proved to be very lax in its internal preparations, which led to a situation where it could not even present a proposal for the approval of the ordinance in the parliament. The reality today is that the government which was formed with the aim of amending the constitution, which requires two-thirds of the votes, is having difficulty even getting the mandatory general majority to approve the ordinance.
If the current balance of power in the House is maintained, it will be difficult to make other laws in the future. In other words, it was seen that a sensitive issue like constitutional amendment was brought to the fore without studying whether the balance of parliamentary power would help or not.
Once again, the way to make laws through consensus may not be very complicated, but it is certain that the constitution cannot be amended according to the current action plan. In any country where a bicameral system is adopted, the government may not always have a majority in both houses. Such an arrangement is also useful in making the government aware of its position and in maintaining the balance of political power.
Now the government will probably initiate dialogue with other political parties to advance the ordinance and other bills. If this happens, not only ordinances and laws will be made, but it will also help to strengthen the parliamentary practice .
