Nepal fails to get new PM even after 10th round

KATHMANDU - Anger, ridicule and disinterest marked the 10th round of prime ministerial election in Nepal Wednesday with the parties failing to elect a new premier for an unprecedented 10th time in a row despite only one contestant remaining in the fray.

Even before the election started, the Parliamentary Business Advisory Committee said the 11th round would be held Thursday if the day’s vote proved inconclusive.

Former deputy prime minister Ram Chandra Poudel came under fire from the opposition Maoist party after his Nepali Congress (NC) party refused to withdraw his candidacy in spite of knowing, from the past elections, that the veteran leader would not be able to win the nearly 300 votes needed for victory.

A last-ditch meeting Wednesday among the ruling communists, their ally NC and the opposition Maoists failed to persuade Poudel to step down and pave the way for a new election process.

Nepal’s unique election system allows even a single and floundering contestant to run the race endlessly till he wins or quits the ring.

Poudel mustered only 109 votes while one MP voted against him and 46 remained neutral.

With five of the largest parties in parliament not taking part in the process, it was a foregone conclusion, even before Wednesday’s election started, that it would be futile, like the earlier rounds.

The Maoists, communists and a bloc of four regional parties have been eschewing the election, since it started in July, stating various reasons.

Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, who exited from the race last month, flayed Poudel for refusing to budge, calling the ongoing election the laughing stock of the world and going against democracy.

The Nepali Congress defended its stand saying it suspected a new alliance between the Maoists and the communists as a ploy to grab power unethically and would not budge unless the Maoists agreed to a time-bound peace process and disbanded their guerrilla army that officially has nearly 20,000 combatants.

The impasse, the longest in even Nepal’s turbulent history, has seen the government struggling to table a new budget amidst a warning by the Maoists that they would block it unless an agreement on power-sharing was reached.

Besides running out of funds, the government is running out of time as well.

It has less than seven months to draft a new constitution or face a constitutional crisis.

Due to their endless squabbling for power, the parties failed to promulgate the new constitution this May. Now it seems doubtful that they would be able to meet the target in mid-May 2011.

Nepal stands to lose credibility in the international community if it fails to rehabilitate the guerrilla combatants by January when the UN, that is part of the process, will make its exit.

UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, B. Lynn Pascoe, arrived in Kathmandu Wednesday to assess the halted peace process. He will be sending his report to UN chief Ban Ki-moon.