KATHMANDU, May 17: Senior leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) Madhav Kumar Nepal, who is proposed as a prime ministerial candidate in the new government, has finally succeeded to garner a clear majority in the parliament.
Altogether 350 lawmakers from 22 political parties in the Constituent Assembly submitted a list of signatures supporting Nepal as new Prime Minister to Speaker Subas Nemwang at the latter´s office at the Parliament Secretariat in Singha Durbar on Monday afternoon. [break]
Only two of the 24 parties in the CA -- Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Nepal Workers and Peasants´ Party (NWPP) -- did not sign in favor of Nepal. NWPP is still undecided on supporting the proposed coalition to be led by Nepal.
UML gathered majority support only after the fourth largest party in the CA Madhesi People´s Rights Forum (MPRF), which holds key the role in forming the new coalition, officially decided to support Nepal.
Earlier, two factions of MPRF led by party chairman Upendra Yadav and its parliamentary party leader Bijay Gachchhadar had lobbied for Maoist-led government and UML-led government, respectively.
The alliance led by UML and NC, the third and second largest party in the CA, had proposed Nepal as future PM and asked other political parties to support the alliance after PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal stepped down on May 4.
According to UML leader Raghuji Pant, MPRF chairman Upendra Yadav wrote a letter to UML extending his party´s support to form the new government led by Nepal. Yadav wrote the letter after MPRF parliamentary party leader Bijaya Gachchhadar told media that he had handed a list of signatures of majority MPRF lawmakers to NC and UML leaders, supporting Nepal as the new prime minister.
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