By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : Held under the shadow of a dire economic and constitutional crisis, the ninth round of vote to elect a new prime minister in Nepal failed yet again with the lone contestant unable to get the required number of votes Thursday but still refusing to quit the race.
Former deputy prime minister Ram Chandra Poudel, the only contender after his rival, Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, withdrew from the race Tuesday, failed to win the 300 votes required to become the new premier of Nepal.
He could muster only 105 votes while 2 lawmakers voted against him and 61 withheld their vote.
The chairman of parliament, Subas Chandra Nembang, said the 10th round of election would be held Oct 6.
Disinterest, pessimism and frustration marked the unprecedented ninth round of election with less than one-third of the current 599 lawmakers turning up to take part in the exercise.
However, Poudel’s party, the Nepali Congress (NC), the second largest in parliament after the Maoists, said it would not exit from the ring unless the Maoists fulfilled two major conditions.
The NC is demanding that the Maoists give a timetable to conclude the halted peace process and agree on the formation of a new government.
Though Poudel is not likely to get the required number of votes, the NC has still been refusing to withdraw, fearing a new alliance between the Maoists and the communists could then sweep the poll.
Nepal’s unique prime ministerial election system means the race could be run even with one contestant. Once it starts, it has to continue till the candidate gets 300 votes or quits.
When parliament held the first round of election in July after prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned on June 30 due to Maoist pressure, Prachanda and communist chief Jhalanath Khanal had also announced their candidacy.
However, Khanal was shown the door by his own party and Prachanda, after failing to win all through seven rounds of vote, withdrew.
The protracted deadlock has placed the nation in a dire financial crisis with the caretaker government unable to pass the budget and running out of funds.
The caretaker prime minister Wednesday held consultations with former finance ministers who advised him to table the budget next month. But the Maoists said they would oppose a full budget by a caretaker government unless an agreement on forming the new government is reached first.
Without the consent of the former rebels, the budget is not likely to be passed in parliament where the former rebels hold over 30 percent seats.
A severe constitutional crisis also looms large with the major parties having frittered away four months – one-third of the 12-month extension they had been given to draft a new constitution.
The statute, the centrepiece of the peace process, was to have been promulgated in May. But the fierce jousting for power derailed the attempt and now, the squabbling parties could fail the May 2011 deadline as well.