All doors open to form a new government: Who will be the new PM? Deuba or Prachanda?

KATHMANDU, Dec 15: The Election Commission on Thursday submitted the final report of the election of the House of Representatives (HoR) to President Bidya Devi Bhandari. With this, all doors are now open for the formation of a new government and the preparations are underway.

According to the election results, the Nepali Congress has now been established as the largest party in the HoR winning 89 seats followed by the CPN-UML with 87 seats and CPN ( Maoist Center) with 32 seats.

Likewise, the Swatantra Party has garnered 20, RPP has won 14, JSP has won 12, CPN (Unified Socialist) has collected 10, Janamat Party has got six and Loktantrik Samajbadi Party has secured four seats in the HoR.

As the largest party in the HoR, the Nepali Congress has begun informal preparations to form a coalition government. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is in a bid to run again for the post along with other aspirants like Ram Chandra Poudel, Dr Shekhar Koirala and Gagan Thapa from the party. Apart from that Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Chairman of CPN (Maoist Center) has also shown his interest to be the next Prime MInister of the country.

According to the sources, the Nepali Congress is unlikely to negotiate with other parties for the post of Prime Minister and President. In this scenario, CPN (Maoist Center)’s Chair Dahal has been frequently spotted in touch with leaders of CPN-UML as well to negotiate the power sharing. 

The two coalition partners of the Nepali Congress, the CPN (Maoist Center and CPN (US), have been maintaining that if the post of Prime Minister is to be given to the Nepali Congress, the post of the President and Speaker are to be given to these two parties.