By Xinhua,
Kathmandu : Nepali Constituent Assembly (CA) members began voting Saturday morning to elect the first president and vice president of the youngest republic in the world.
Polling started at 11:36 a.m. (0551 GMT) on Saturday at the CA venue, International Conference Center, in Nepali capital Kathmandu.
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 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.
The President and Vice President are to be elected through a confidential vote and parties cannot impose any whip on their members to vote for a particular candidate. Saturday’s voting results will be declared by the CA election committee at 17:00 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.