Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda also known as Pushpa Kamal Dahal, lost a parliamentary vote of confidence on Friday, ending a tumultuous 20-month tenure that saw him survive four such trust votes, and paving the way for the formation of a new coalition government.
Nepal Prime Minister Dahal, 69, was forced to either resign or prove his majority in parliament after his largest ally, the liberal Communist Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) party, withdrew support to his government last week.
He needed at least 138 votes in his favour in the 275-member house to retain power.
A total of 63 of the 258 lawmakers present in the chambers voted for Dahal on Friday, while 194 voted against him and one abstained.
“The confidence vote sought by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been rejected,” Parliament Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire declared after the ballots were counted.
The new prime minister is expected to be KP Sharma Oli, leader of the CPN(UML), who has an understanding with his main conspirator Sher Bahadur Deuba, leader of the Nepali Congress. Oli will run the show for a year and a half with Deuba taking over after that.
It remains to be seen how this new arrangement works given that Oli and Dahal had fallen out over a similar understanding in the recent past. Oli and Deuba represent the two biggest parties in Nepal’s politics and probably see this arrangement as temporary.
Incidentally, all three are former prime ministers. Deuba has served an unprecedented five terms although that fades when one looks at the number of actual years served: total six. Oli has served two terms while Dahal has served a little over six years.
India is yet to comment on this development although Delhi has been monitoring the political instability in Kathmandu with some concern. While traditionally Nepali prime ministers do tend to play the China card to balance India, and this was visible during Oli’s prime ministership.
It was Oli, incidentally, who incorporated the border territories of Kalapani into the national emblem, although India has troops stationed there and has administered the area for decades.
