Aawaaj Report

As the vote counting of November 20 elections comes to an end and almost all results are already in, it can be observed that no party has won a clear majority.

With no party enjoying a majority, it is not clear who will lead the new government and who will become the prime minister. Similarly, the next government will face the challenges of keeping a stable administration.

Amid several leaders eyeing the prime minister’s position, big political parties have started to intensify discussions to form a coalition that would favour them to lead the nation. The current ruling five-party alliance led by the Nepali Congress is determined to expand their coalition and shake hands with smaller parties to form a new government.

Meanwhile, the CPN-UML is trying to mend its relationship with CPN (Maoist Center) and get back to their former coalition to form a government. Several leaders of CPN (Maoist Center), who hinted they were unhappy about Nepali Congress not fully supporting them during the elections, have now started complaining openly about poor transfer of Congress votes.

However, it is still uncertain whether any coalition can win a simple majority of 138 seats in the House of Representatives.

As it is almost certain that the five-party alliance has failed to achieve the mandatory total of 138 seats to claim the majority, they are considering to seek help from Nagarik Unmukti Party or some independent candidates.

Similarly, senior Nepali Congress leaders such as Ram Chandra Poudel, Gagan Thapa and Prakash Man Singh have also publicly expressed their interest to become prime minister.

On the other hand, the party with the second largest majority, (CPN-UML) is also working to cobble support from other parties to form the next government.

Nepal’s Parliament has a total of 275 members, out of which 165 are directly elected and the remaining 110 chosen by the political parties who are allocated seats in proportion to the votes they get. The lack of political stability in Nepal, with change of 13 governments in the past 16 years has been blamed for a slow economy.