Nepal PM announces seven-member cabinet

Nepal’s new prime minister announced a cabinet today that includes a communist party leader as his deputy, and he faces the daunting tasks of negotiating peace with Maoist rebels and cementing the return of democracy.

The extremely lean seven-man cabinet - the outgoing one had 34 members – will be expanded later, political leaders said in Kathmandu.

It includes four members from prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress party, and one each from the Communist Party of Nepal, the Nepali Congres Democratic and the United Left Front.

Three other parties in the seven-party alliance that led weeks of bloody protests that forced King Gyanendra to hand over power to an elected parliament last week are expected to get appointments later.

The ailing 84-year-old Koirala named Khadga Prasad Oli of the Communist Party Nepal as deputy prime minister and foreign minister in an apparent compromise after negotiations for the crucial number-two slot bogged down yesterday and threatened to splinter the seven-party alliance.

Krishna Sitaula was picked as home minister, while Ram Sharan Mahat was named finance minister. Both are from the Nepali Congress party.

The royal palace’s announcement of the new cabinet came an hour before parliament, which opened its first session in four years last Friday, was to tackle a list of high-priority proposals.

They include declaring a ceasefire with the Maoists, who played a key role in the protests and announced a unilateral three-month truce last week, and setting up the nuts and bolts for the election of an assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Legislation, decrees and appointments approved since King Gyanendra grabbed absolute power in February 2005 are expected to be rescinded and the king stripped of much of his authority.

The cabinet has been tasked with investigating who gave the orders for security forces to crack down brutally on demonstrations. At least 17 protesters died.

US and Norwegian diplomats were to arrive later today for the first visits by senior foreign officials since Gyanendra ceded power last week.

Richard Boucher, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, was to spend two days in Nepal, the US Embassy in Kathmandu said.

Norway’s Development Co-operation Minister Erik Solheim was to make a three-day visit.

Solheim has been acting as a peace negotiator in Sri Lanka. It was unclear if he would get involved in talks that are expected between Nepal’s government and communist insurgents who played a key role in the push to end the king’s absolute power.

No details about the officials’ schedules were released, but they are expected to meet several political leaders, including Koirala, who was sworn in for a fifth stint as premier on Sunday.

The tangled negotiations over the cabinet make-up were a sign of the difficulties in keeping the united front against the king from dissolving into self-interest. The smaller cabinet is meant to streamline what has been seen as an inefficient bureaucracy.

The newly reinstated parliament on Sunday unanimously called for an assembly to rewrite the constitution, and for a ceasefire with the communist insurgents, who appear headed for a role in the political mainstream.

A new constitution has been the Maoists’ top demand. The new charter is expected to severely limit the monarch’s power to prevent him from grabbing power again. He will probably be stripped of his control of the military.