Nepal tries to get new PM in 7th round of election

Nepal's Legislature Parliament has been striving to elect the 34th Prime Minister since two months ago but it has encountered failure even in the sixth round of election on Sunday, after caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned, saying that his resignation will pave way for a national consensus government.

Though House failed to elect new prime minister even in the sixth attempt, it has announced the next run-off on Tuesday, which may again end in fiasco if political parties glued in their ideological stances.

The largest party Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) ( UCPN-M) Chairman Prachanda and second largest party Nepali Congress(NC) Vice-Chairman Ramchanda Paudel are vying for the post of prime minister.

"Indecisiveness of some of the major parties once again prevented the country from getting a new prime minister even after six rounds of voting in the span of two months after Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned from the post on June 30," said Monday's Republica Daily in its editorial.

It said the election process that has been going on for the last two months has virtually paralyzed all vital sectors of the country.

Though M.K. Nepal's resignation was supposed to create a headway forming a new consensus government to conclude ongoing peace process in drafting new constitution on time but due to political vacuum, political scenario has turned to be "taking hostage" as termed by political leaders and analysts.

In contrast to form new consensus government, the country is likely to face prolonged political stalemate as parties are exercising to grab power rather than showing flexibility to end deadlock.

At this political impasse, different parties possessing different ideologies and failure to forge consensus, Nepal is even striving to form majority government. But this has also become tougher as Legislature-Parliament of Nepal has failed to elect new prime minister with simple majority consecutively six times.

According to Interim Constitution of Nepal 2007, candidates must gain simple majority -- 301 votes with the capacity of 601 lawmakers in Parliament.

After the third largest party, Communist Party of Nepal ( Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) with 109 seats and United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF), an alliance of four Madhes-based parties which commands 82 seats in Parliament decided to remain neutral, the candidates could not collect majority votes on their sides.

Amid such unclear politics, voices are becoming stronger that the current election process should be annulled and the process of forming a consensus government begun afresh.

Republica daily writes that it is about time the leaders rid the country of uncertainty and focused on writing a democratic constitution and taking the peace process to its logical end. The sooner the neutral parties realize that they were voted by the people to make decisions, not remain neutral, the better it would be for the country and their own image.

"We once again urge all the concerned political parties to take a serious look at the costs the country is forced to bear due to their meaningless neutrality, and be decisive in the next round of election scheduled for Sept. 7," the daily said. But this may not work out until leaders solve persisting differences between parties.

The existing regulations of the Nepal's House require that voting should be carried out unless one of the two candidates gets a clear simple majority or chooses to back out.

Source: Xinhua