KP Sharma Oli became prime minister with the support of the Nepali Congress, the largest party in parliament.
Kathmandu:
KP Sharma Oli was sworn in as Nepal’s prime minister for the fourth time on Monday to lead a new coalition government that faces the enormous challenge of providing political stability in the Himalayan country.
The leader of Nepal’s largest communist party was appointed prime minister by President Ram Chandra Paudel on Sunday to head the coalition government with the Nepali Congress (NC), the largest party in parliament apart from other smaller parties.
Oli, 72, succeeds Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, who lost the confidence vote in the House of Representatives (HoR) on Friday, leading to the formation of the new government.
Oli, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), was sworn in by President Paudel at Shital Niwas, the main building of Rashtrapati Bhawan, in a ceremony that was postponed by more than half an hour.
According to news portal MyRepublica, the swearing-in ceremony was postponed due to the Nepali Congress’s inability to finalize the names of its ministers to join the government amid disputes within the party.
The President also administered oath to the two Deputy Prime Ministers – Prakash Man Singh and Bishnu Paudel – and 19 other ministers. Singh would also look after the Ministry of Urban Development while Vishnu Prakash Paudel would look after the Ministry of Finance.
Arzoo Rana Deuba, wife of Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, is the foreign minister in the cabinet.
There are 10 ministers of the Nepali Congress; eight, excluding Prime Minister, from CPN-UML, two from the Janata Samajwadi Party and one from the Lokatantrik Samajwadi Party in the government.
Outgoing Prime Minister Prachanda was also present at the ceremony, which was attended by foreign diplomats and other dignitaries.
Earlier on Sunday, President Paudel appointed Oli as the new prime minister under Article 76-2 of Nepal’s Constitution, according to a notice from the President’s Office.
On Friday evening, Oli had staked his claim to become the next Prime Minister, with the support of NC President Deuba, and submitted the signatures of 165 members of the House of Representatives (HoR) – 77 from his Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist ( CPN). -UML) party and 88 of the Nepali Congress. (NC).
Oli will now have to get a vote of confidence from parliament within thirty days of his appointment, which he is likely to get easily as the minimum number to form a government in the 275-strong HoR is just 138.
Prachanda faced a vote of confidence when Oli’s party withdrew its support from that coalition earlier last week and struck a new seven-point deal with Deuba to form a new coalition government.
Under the July 1 agreement between NC and CPN-UML, the two parties will lead the government on a rotating basis until the next general elections, scheduled for 2027.
Oli was Prime Minister of Nepal from October 11, 2015 to August 3, 2016 and then from February 5, 2018 to July 13, 2021. He remained so from May 13, 2021 to July 13, 2021 – due to an appointment by then President Bidya Devi Bhandari, by local media described as a success of Oli’s Machiavellian tricks. Later, the Supreme Court ruled that Oli’s claim to the prime minister’s post was unconstitutional.
Nepal has experienced periodic political unrest as the country has had fourteen governments in the past sixteen years since the introduction of the Republican system.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
