Leaders of the seven party ruling alliance in Nepal have reached an agreement to break a stalemate and resume the process towards the election of a Constituent Assembly which will formulate a new Constitution for Nepal. Elections were originally scheduled for June of last year, and were then postponed to November 2006. However this date could not be kept mainly because of certain disagreements between the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) on the one hand and the other parties of the alliance. The disagreement centred mainly around two issues: whether the polls would be based on proportional representation or the first-past-the-post system; and whether the monarchy should be abolished before or after the coming into being of the Constituent Assembly.

Following the agreement reached among the seven parties, Nepal's interim Parliament voted to abolish the oppressive monarchy, which was brought to its knees by the powerful people's movement of April 2006. What this means in effect is that the monarchy remains suspended until the decision is ratified by the new Constituent Assembly. It has also been agreed to hold the elections to the Constituent Assembly now in April 2007.

The people of Nepal, who waged a successful struggle against the hated King Gyanendra, have a unique opportunity to assert their sovereignty and fashion a new state power and system for themselves through a new Constitution drafted by an elected Constituent Assembly. Various reactionary forces inside Nepal and foreign powers that had supported the reactionary governments in the past would be keen to prevent such a development from taking place. Pointing to the struggles being waged by various sections of the people to assert their rights and ensure that these are recognised in the new dispensation, these forces are already doing propaganda that Nepal is being plunged into “chaos”. It is important that the elections to the Constituent Assembly are held as soon as possible without foreign interference so that the people of Nepal can take important decisions about their future and resolve their problems in their own chosen way.