By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : With the 10 days’ time given to Nepal’s warring parties by President Ram Baran Yadav to name a new consensus prime minister running out Wednesday evening, the head of state has now asked parliament to elect a new premier on the basis of majority vote.
“The president has directed parliament to start proceedings to elect a new prime minister,” Yadav’s media advisor Rajendra Dahal said.
Last time, it had taken seven months and an unprecedented 17 rounds of vote to pick a new premier as the three major parties – the Maoists, Nepali Congress and communists – remained deadlocked in a bitter power struggle.
This time, the race is likely to narrow down between two contestants: Maoist deputy chief Baburam Bhattarai and Nepali Congress leader and three-time former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.
Though the Maoists are the largest party in the house, they still need the support of other parties to attain majority and the communists, their allies in the last government, Wednesday said they would not support the former rebels.
“The Maoists have to start regrouping their guerrilla army immediately and complete the disbanding of the forces within the time decided upon,” said communist leader and former premier Madhav Kumar Nepal.
“Unless they do that and create an environment of trust, we can’t accept their leadership.”
The communists are being supported by 10 minor parties and the bloc could vote for the Nepali Congress during the upcoming election.
A crucial role will be played by a group of ethnic parties from the Terai plains, who are the fourth largest bloc in the 601-seat parliament.
The parliament secretariat said the election date would be decided Thursday when parliament convenes.
An elected prime minister bodes ill for Nepal that saw two earlier PMs, elected on the basis of majority, forced to quit within months.
The political turmoil, started in 2009 with the fall of the Maoist government, threatens to derail the fragile peace process that saw the Maoist insurgency end in 2006.
The peace process was to have climaxed with a new people’s constitution. However, with just a week left for the statute to be unveiled, it is certain that the parties will again fail to perform the task.
They have already failed two earlier deadlines and are now trying to extend the Aug 31 deadline by three months more even as a battle is being fought in the Supreme Court with two lawyers challenging the repeated extensions of the deadline.
(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at [email protected])