By Xinhua
Kathmandu : The top leaders of Nepal’s ruling Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) Sunday signed a 23-point agreement, ending months-long political stalemate and paving the way for the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections by mid April next year.
With the signing of the agreement, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) will be returning to the council of ministers. Four of the CPN-M ministers resigned from their posts on Sep 18, to express their disagreement over announcing the country a republic and the electoral system to be adopted during the CA elections.
Earlier Sunday evening, a leader of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) Mahesh Acharya told the media that the SPA was signing the 22-point agreement. However, the political parties later added one more point before all the top leaders signed the agreement late Sunday night.
The 23rd point of the agreement, signed at the final moment of the agreement, was to reach consensus on joint appeal by the SPA to Nepalese people to consider holding the CA elections as a primary national agenda.
The SPA, in the agreement signed by top leaders, including Chairman of CPN-M Prachanda, NC President Sushil Koirala and General-Secretary of the CPN-UML Madhav Kumar Nepal, urged all Nepalese people to hold the CA election in free, fair and terror-free environment by mid-April 2008.