Nepal's parliament in a unanimous vote has stripped King Gyanendra of his right to veto laws in a move that formally makes him a ceremonial monarch, an official notice said yesterday.
The law, passed by an interim government that came to power in April when King Gyanendra bowed to popular protests and ceded absolute power, was passed late on Saturday, according to a parliament notice published yesterday.
"Now the king's role is totally ceremonial," Raghuji Panta, a member of parliament from Nepal's second largest party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) told reporters.
Parliament made a proclamation last month that drastically clipped the king's authority and Saturday's regulation formally scrapped his right to reject bills and laws passed by parliament, according to a senior legislative member.
"With the approval of the regulation, a new rule has been made that full executive power of the state is centred on the council of ministers and the house holds legislative power," Subash Nemwang, the speaker in the lower house of representatives told reporters.
In addition to losing legislative veto power, the king no longer has control of the 90,000-strong Nepal Army nor can he choose an heir to the throne.
The king was forced from power after protests organized by political parties in concert with Maoist rebels who opposed his seizure of power on February 1 last year.
The parties and rebels have since observed a ceasefire and the government has met a key rebel demand, for elections to an assembly that will redraft Nepal's constitution.
But the rebels want the government to move faster, including dissolving parliament and forming a new interim government that includes them.
"At a time when we have been stressing the dissolution of the present house, all its regulations and announcements are meaningless," Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara told reporters.
"Though some of the points of the regulation are positive, it shows that the parties through their hasty decisions are running away from the major agenda of establishing peace in the country," he said.
A political analyst said the regulation now needed to be followed in a new constitution.
The 1990 constitution ended the absolute monarchy and ushered in parliamentary democracy but gave the king the power to veto laws. The monarch had also retained supreme command of the army.
"Parliamentarians must understand that the regulation is not a substitute for the constitution. An interim constitution is needed to settle the political crisis," said Kapil Shrestha, a politics professor from Nepal's Tribhuvan University.
King Gyanendra sacked the government and took direct control because he said that the political parties were corrupt and had failed to tackle the rebel insurgency.
The move originally drew some popular support as the country, one of the 10 poorest in the world, faced constant strikes and transport blockades that drove up prices and discouraged tourism, a mainstay of the economy.
But the king used his powers to quash dissent including arrests of political leaders and curb the media which sparked an alliance between the rebels and an alliance of seven major parties.
Since the rebels began their "people's war" in 1996, at least 12,500 people have been killed.
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