Madhav Kumar Nepal new Nepal PM; Maoists boycott voting

Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, May 23 (PTI) Veteran Communist leader Madhav
Kumar Nepal was Saturday elected unopposed as the Prime
Minister of Nepal, bringing to an end the nearly three-week
long political crisis in the country.

The 56-year-old CPN-UML leader, who claims to have the
support of 351 lawmakers in the 601-member Constituent
Assembly, was the only candidate to have filed the nomination
for the top post. The Maoists boycotted the voting process and
said they will not join the new government.

Caretaker premier and Maoist supremo Prachanda and Maoist
number two leader Baburam Bhattarai were absent during the
parliament session Saturday.

Nepal will replace Prachanda who had resigned as premier
on May 4 in the wake of differences with President Ram Baran
Yadav on the issue of sacking of the army chief.

Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala proposed
56-year-old Nepal's name for the post and CPN-UML Chairman
Jhalanath Khanal seconded it along with representatives from
22 different parties including key Madhesi group MPRF.

Speaker Subhas Nemwang declared Nepal as elected.

Nepal, whose whose family migrated from Bihar to Nepal
more than 200 years ago and who had part of his education in
India, was a former deputy prime minister in a nine-month
government led by Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist
Leninist in 1994-95. He had led the party for 15 years
from 1993 to 2008.PTI