New Nepali prime minister sworn in
Updated
Nepal has a new prime minister. Madhav Kumar Nepal of the United Marxist Leninist Party took the mantle on Saturday and has the unenviable task of putting Nepal back on track in achieving reconciliation and writing a new constitution for the republic.
Presenter: Kanaha Sabapathy
Speaker: Achuyut Wagle, political analyst
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NEWANG: I want to congratulate senior political leader, Madhav Kumar Nepal for being elected the new prime minister.
SABAPATHY: And with those words parliamentary speaker Subash Newang formally announced that Nepal, after three weeks without a leader, has a new prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.
Mr Nepal was the only candidate to stand for the position which became vacant after the Maoist prime minister Prachanda resigned earlier this month after president Ram Baran Yadav blocked his sacking of the army chief of staff.
The new prime minister brings together a coalition of 21 parties out of the 24 in parliament. He has 358 of the 601 parliamentarians behind him but the largest party the Maoist with 238 seats not only boycotted the election of the new premier but also called it a farce.
Political analyst Achuyut Wagle says while the figures for the new government look promising the fact remains the Maoists need to be integrated into the political system but are they committed to working within a civilian government?
WAGLE: They have categorically said that they are just boycotting that one single process of electing the prime minister, not the entire house proceedings in full. So at the constitutional level, that is not a big issue. The major issue is how would they behave from now on? That is the most important factor to take the peace process into a logical conclusion.
SABAPATHY: But the Maoists since the resignation of their leader Prachanda earlier this month actually prevented the parliamentary process. This came to an end on Friday when Prachanda made a statement. So what actually did he say that allowed for the protest to end and for the parliamentary process to take place?
WAGLE: In fact, they had probably realised that their real face has been exposed by on the one side resigning from the premiership and on the other hand impeding the entire process of selecting the new prime minister. So there was a big inconsistency in their policies and that got exposed in the media, and even the diplomatic communities thought that was a very absurd position not to allow new prime minister to be elected. Whatever may be their pretext or their excuse, everybody knows that Prachanda resigned after his government fell into the minority position. So later on, they realised that they cannot continue to obstruct the house for an infinite period of time.
SABAPATHY: Now coming back to the new government. In the period before the new republic of Nepal was formed, when we had some form of limited democracy as such. These parties could never work together. Is there a change of attitude, policy, perhaps the fact that they are now a democracy, that they would work together?
WAGLE: That is the hope, but it is probably the biggest challenge for the new prime minister to keep all those parties together with their diverse political positions. Some are even going to the extent of having very autonomous provinces with the so-called right to self-determination and many of the groups that come representing the ethnic groups who have got very radical ideas like forming separate states. So it is really a very complex situation, but there is no alternative for us to hope against hope.
