Nepal to hold first parliament session on March 5

Nepal’s new bicameral parliament will begin work in March for the first time since its approval in the 2015 constitution, ending a transition that began 10 years ago, President Bidya Devi Bhandari office said yesterday.The first session of the federal parliament, made up of the house of representatives (lower house) and National Assembly (upper house), will take place on March 5 at the International Convention Centre in New Baneshwor, the president office said in a statement.She summoned the meeting of the federal parliament on the recommendation of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli, who was sworn in on February 15, the Kathmandu Post reported.Oli heads a coalition between his Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) – which swept the general elections in December.The CPN-UML and the CPN-M, which are in the middle of a process of party unification, will control 174 of the 275 seats in the new House of Representatives. The country’s main opposition party, the Nepali Congress, will have 63 seats.The presidents of the house of representatives and the National Assembly will be elected within 15 days of the first parliamentary session and in the meantime the senior-most representative of each chamber will chair the session.“The top leaders from the major parties will address the first meeting,” parliament’s spokesperson Bharat Raj Gautam told Efe news.In 15 days, Nepal is due to have a new operational parliament and all the institutions approved in the 2015 constitution, will be set up.With that, the country will bring to an end a highly unstable period of transition that began with the end of the monarchy in 2008, two years after the end of the war against the Maoist rebels in 2006.