No Nepal PM even after fifth attempt

Aug 24, 2010 |

Tags:

Kathmandu, Aug. 23: Nepal’s legislators on Monday rejected Maoist chief, Mr Prachanda, and his NC rival, Mr Ram Chandra Poudyal, for the fifth time in the prime ministerial elections, plunging the country into a deeper political crisis in the absence of a government.

Mr Prachanda, 55, a former prime minister, managed to bag only 246 votes, with 111 members opposing his candidature. Mr Poudyal, 65, also failed to touch the magic figure of 301, receiving just 124 votes in favour and 243 against.

Out of the total 563 legislators who participated in the voting, 206 members, mostly from Madhesi parties, remained neutral. During the fourth round of voting on August 6, Mr Prachanda had secured 213 votes while Mr Poudyal got 122.

The CPN-UML with the strength of 109 and the Madhesi alliance with the combine strength of 84 and other smaller parties had earlier decided to remain neutral. The Madhesi alliance of four parties — Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF), MPRF–Democratic, Terai Madhes Democratic Party and Sadbhavana Party — had maintained they would back the party that provided a clear roadmap to conclude the peace process and addressed demands of the Indian-origin community from the southern Terai region, including greater economic and political rights for them.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/29445" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a25fd20e2578cb2819e18c05c9ebb685" value="form-a25fd20e2578cb2819e18c05c9ebb685" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85680716" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>