Nepal PM race ends in fiasco, Maoists get thumbs-down (Third Lead)

KATHMANDU - Nepal’s third prime ministerial election in two years ended in a fiasco Wednesday night with the Maoists receiving a humiliating snub as lawmakers flayed the contenders and refused to give any of them a leg-up to the top job.

It was an especially humiliating moment for Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, the revolutionary who had fathered a 10-year insurrection and won a thumping victory in 2008, leading the first Maoist government of Nepal.

The 55-year-old could only watch in stunned disbelief as the chairman of Nepal’s parliament, Subhash Nembang, announced that Prachanda had won only 242 votes, falling considerably short of the 301 needed to get simple majority in the 601-seat house.

While 114 MPs voted against him, 236 decided to abstain.

With the Maoists being the largest party in parliament and having 237 MPs of their own, the pathetic result meant the ‘Fierce One’ had won just a paltry five votes from the other parties.

It was little consolation that his closest rival, former deputy prime minister Ram Chandra Poudel, fared even worse.

Poudel managed to get just 124 votes while 235 MPs threw their weight against him and 228 abstained. Still, with the Nepal Congress (NC) having 114 MPs, it meant he had gained 10 votes from others, twice Prachanda’s outside vote.

The poll became farcical after the third contender, the Communists, announced they were withdrawing the nomination of their man, party chief Jhalanath Khanal.

The Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, which has been riddled with infighting over the prime ministerial candidate, finally decided to field Khanal only if he were able to show he had the backing of two-third of the lawmakers, or over 400 votes.

In the morning, the Communists struck up an uneasy alliance with the Maoists. Prachanda agreed to support Khanal if he could win two-third majority in parliament.

However, only a couple of hours later, the party said it had withdrawn support to Khanal and Prachanda would go it alone.

To add to the chaos, four ethnic parties from the Terai, whose support would have been decisive, announced in a surprise move that they would not support any of the contestants.

The Terai declaration meant 82 MPs were boycotting the election.

There were indications that things would not go the Maoist way when the election started nearly five hours after schedule.

Most of the parties flayed Prachanda and his two contenders, accusing them of lusting for power and forgetting national interests.

However, Prachanda could still bounce back when a second round of election is held later this week. It is expected to be held Friday.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)