By Xinhua,
Kathmandu : The Nepali presidential election voting ended Saturday afternoon at the Constituent Assembly (CA)venue, International Conference Center (ICC) in Kathmandu.
The CA members started voting to elect the first president and vice president of the youngest republic in the world at Saturday noon.
Nepal was declared a federal democratic republic at the first CA meeting on May 28, ending the 240-year Shah dynasty.
Three candidates have been registered for the post of president and four for the vice president till the fixed time on Thursday.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M), Nepali Congress (NC), the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) (CPN-UML) and Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) have filed the names of their candidates for the president and vice president.
The CPN-M, the single largest CA party with seats more than the total of the following NC and CPN-UML, proposed a Madhesi republican leader Ram Raja Prasad Singh for the presidential post and its CA lawmaker Shanta Shrestha for the vice presidential post.
The NC has registered its General Secretary Ram Baran Yadav as presidential candidate and veteran dalit leader Man Bahadur Bishwakarma as vice presidential candidate.
The CPN-UML has proposed the name of a former vice chairman of the upper house and a dalit leader Ramprit Paswan for president and its party leader Astalaxmi Shakya for vice president.
The MPRF registered the name of a former justice of supreme court Parmananda Jha for the vice presidential post.
Saturday’s voting results will be declared by the CA election committee at 5 p.m. local time (1115 GMT), according to the CA schedule.
If a single candidate fails to secure a simple majority (298 votes out of 594 CA member voters), two top candidates securing the largest number of votes will contest again in the elections for the second round. The elections will be held in successive rounds until a single candidate for the two posts emerge with a simple majority.
Madhesi parties once promised to support CPN-M nominated president candidate, which made a simple majority support for Ram Raja Prasad Singh. However, that the CPN-M refused to extend support Madhesi parties’ proposal of vice president shook the latter’s stance.
In a sudden shift in political equation, three largest CA parties following the single largest CPN-M, the NC, CPN-UML and MPRF, have agreed to share the three key positions — president, vice-president and CA speaker, local leading news website Nepalnews.com reported on Saturday afternoon.
“As per the understanding reached at a meeting of the three parties Saturday morning, just ahead of the presidential election, CPN-UML and MPRF have agreed to back NC’s presidential candidate Dr. Ram Baran Yadav while MPRF’s Paramananda Jha will get support for the vice presidential slot. Likewise, CPN-UML has settled for the chair of the CA,” the report read.
However, the three parties will have to bring few other allies on board to reach the magic number, 298, in order to materialize their agreement. The total CA seats of the NC and CPN-UML, less than the single largest CPN-M, with the possible support from MPRF, still falls short of simple majority.