Parliament voting on PM Oli’s confidence motion today

KATHMANDU, May 10: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is taking a vote of confidence from the House of Representatives (HoR) on Monday afternoon. 

President Bidya Devi Bhandari summoned a special House session for 1 PM on Monday citing PM Oli considers it necessary to seek parliament’s trust on him as per Article 100(1) of the constitution. 

PM Oli is attempting to garner majority votes in favor two months after the Supreme Court scrapped the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and resurrected the CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center). Responding to a writ petition filed by Rishi Ram Kattel, the apex court, invalidated the merger between UML and Maoist Center to form the NCP. Earlier, the two parties had formed an alliance in 2017 parliamentary elections and got a landslide majority. They had officially announced their merger on May 17, 2018. 

The Maoist party, however, did not withdraw its support extended to the Oli-led government until May 4. A Standing Committee meeting of the party formally decided to pull back its support to the government. 

According to the Federal Parliament Secretariat, arrangements have been made in such a way that those lawmakers who have been infected with the coronavirus disease can also cast their votes during today’s trust vote process.

Ruling CPN-UML has also issued a whip to its lawmakers to mandatorily attend today’s meeting and vote in favor of PM Oli. The party has a total of 121 lawmakers in the lower house of parliament. Oli required at least 136 to win the House’s trust. The lawmakers close to the senior leaders duo Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal, however, are reportedly in mood of resigning en masse unless their demands are not addressed. The faction has been demanding scrap the decisions taken on March 12 and revive the party mechanism as it was on May 16, 2018.

The main opposition Nepali Congress has formally decided to vote against the government in today’s confidence motion. The party has a total of 61 lawmakers in the lower house of parliament.

The Maoist party, which has 49 lawmakers, will also vote against Oli as it recently withdrew its support given to the government. The party is also expediting its efforts for the formation of new alliance to succeed the Oli government.

Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), however, decided not to issue a whip to its lawmakers. A meeting of the party’s office-bearers on Sunday decided to allow its lawmakers to use their discretion. There are 32 lawmakers belonging to the JSP in parliament.

A meeting of parliament’s Business Advisory held on Sunday decided to accomplish all the procedures on confidence motion on Monday itself.