Nepal PM Prachanda loses trust vote, KP Sharma Oli set to return
Kathmandu, July 12
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda on Friday lost a vote of confidence in Parliament after coalition partner CPN-UML withdrew its support to him, a development that will lead to the formation of a new government led by ex-premier KP Sharma Oli.
Okayed China rail deal ahead of vote
A day before Nepal PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda lost a vote of confidence, he gave a nod to an agreement to connect the Himalayan nation with China by rail under Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
Prachanda received only 63 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR) and there were 194 votes against the motion. At least 138 votes are needed to win the vote of trust.
A total of 258 members participated in the voting while one member abstained.
Prachanda, 69, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre (CPN-MC), had survived four trust votes since he assumed the PM’s post on December 25, 2022. He faced the same predicament yet another time because former PM Oli-led Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) withdrew support from the Prachanda-led government last week after inking a power-sharing deal with the largest party in the House — the Nepali Congress (NC). Earlier, Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire ordered trust vote according to Article 100 Clause 2 of the Constitution. After voting was completed, he announced that the trust vote proposed by Prachanda was defeated with a majority vote.
Speaker Ghimire will now inform President Ram Chandra Paudel, who in turn, will invite two or more political parties to stake a claim for the new government according to Article 76 Clause 2 of the Constitution.
This paves the way for the NC and the CPN-UML to form a new coalition government. The NC has 89 seats in the House, while CPN-UML has 78. Their combined strength of 167 is much more than the 138 required for a majority in the lower house.
Nepali Congress (NC) president Sher Bahadur Deuba has already endorsed Oli as the next PM. NC president Deuba and CPN-UML chairman Oli inked a 7-point deal on Monday to form a new coalition toppling Prachanda-led government.
According to the agreement, Oli and Deuba will share the premiership during the remaining period of the House of Representatives; in the first phase Oli will become the Prime Minister for one and a half years and then, Deuba will take the seat for the rest of the period. Prachanda, whose party had 32 seats in the House, was elected the Prime Minister for the third time on December 25, 2022, with the backing of CPN-UML.
