By Xinhua,
Kathmandu : Nepali Constituent Assembly (CA)members began voting in presidential election at 11:36 a.m. (0551 GMT) on Saturday at the CA venue International Conference Center (ICC) in Kathmandu, to elect the first president and vice president of the youngest republic in the world.
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.
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.
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.
What’s more, after their bids to bag president were simultaneously rejected by the CPN-M, the NC and the CPN-UML joined hands and reached to the Madhesi parties, particularly the MPRF.
Reports from local leading news website Nepalnews.com on Saturday said “in what appears to be a reaction to what they have termed as CPN-M’ ‘back-stabbing’, the NC and CPN-UML have agreed to support each other’s candidates for the position of president and CA speaker respectively.”
The total CA seats of the NC and CPN-UML, less than the single largest CPN-M, still falls short of simple majority. “The two parties are trying to rope in the Madhesi parties by agreeing to a package of power-sharing formula based on which they would not only support MPRF candidate for vice president but also divide key portfolios while forming the new government. If this package materializes, the CPN-M may not be able to even form the government,” the report said.