Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Amid the deadlock, Nepal’s president has given the country’s political parties a week to form a new government following an inconclusive national election last month.
President Bidhya Devi Bhandari’s office said in a statement that any member of the House of Representatives who can command the majority by getting support from two or more parties should stake a claim to appoint its prime minister by 5 p.m. (11.15 a.m. GMT) on December 25.
Post-election deadlock
Both the current ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Nepali Congress party and the main opposition party Nepal Communist Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), require the support of smaller groups to constitute a new government.
The ruling alliance won 136 seats in the election, lacking behind by two seats than the required number of 138 in the 275-member lower house to form a government. Meanwhile, UML and its allies won 92 seats. Sandwiched between China and India, Nepal is a small country with a population of 30 million. It has seen 10 government changes since the abolition of its 239-year-old monarchy in 2008 and has been suffering from political instability, which adversely impacted the country’s economic growth.
