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Selecting A Candidate For A New Prime Minister Becoming Uphill Task
By KTM Metro Reporter
November 29, 2012: selecting a candidate for a new prime minister as called by the head of state President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav has been an uphill task to the NC leaders. Even within the NC, the leaders have not been able to decide a person eligible for a candidate for a new prime minister, as three contenders such as President of NC Sushil Koirala, Senior NC leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Vice-president of NC Ram Chandra Poudel have been doing everything possible to use this opportunity to extract maximum possible benefits for them. Mr. Deuba is happy to support Koirala for a candidate for a new prime minister provided Mr. Koirala leaves his current office of president of NC to him. However, Mr. Poudel does not simply want to give up his claim for a candidate for a new prime minister. Consequently even after seven days of negotiating, these three guys have not been able to come to a conclusion: who should be a candidate for a new prime minister.
At the same time, Mr. Koirala has met with the leaders of UCPN-Maoist and UDMF to sound out their support for his candidacy. According to the news reports, Mr. Koirala has not easy time to garner the support for his candidacy. He might need to change his stand on the federalism and on the issues concerning the Madheshi people if he wants the support of the Madheshi parties, as Deputy Prime Minister Bijaya Gacchedar has clearly told Mr. Koirala.
Mr. Poudel also went to meet Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda seeking the support of the UCPN-Maoist for his candidacy. Chairman Prachanda has clearly told Mr. Poudel if the NC leaders want to lead a new government they need to build a consensus on all the pending issues of the new constitution otherwise they should simply need to join the current government and hold elections to a new CA for promulgating a new constitution.
The CPN-UML leaders have been sitting on the fence watching how the NC leaders will manage to choose a candidate for a new prime minister, and even asking the NC leaders to expedite the selection of a candidate. They have not claimed that they also should have a chance to lead a new government, as two leaders of the CPN-UML had already led two unsuccessful governments with the support of the NC in the past.
Speaking at the reporters’ club in Kathmandu today, senior leader of the CPN-UML Madhav Nepal hinted that the head of state President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav might need to face the consequences of calling on the political parties to find out a candidate for a new prime minister rather than taking a strong action. Mr. Nepal wanted direct intervention of the head of state in the state affairs. This is what Nepalis can anticipate from such a man as Madhav Nepal that has failed in the polls but succeeded in the unscrupulous politics and took the office of prime minister for more than two years only to empty the state treasury.
On Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 4:00 PM, the deadline set by the head of state President Yadav for choosing a candidate for a new prime minister expired but the president has extend the deadline for another seven days giving another chance of selecting a candidate for a new prime minister to the NC leaders.
Leaders of four major political parties such as UCPN-Maoist, UDMF, NC and CPN-UML had reached the office of the president before the deadline for selecting a candidate for a new prime minister has expired today to request for extending the deadline. President Yadav cooperated with the political parties on extending the deadline for another seven days in other words until December 6, 2012.
NC leaders can relax for some time before going back to the negotiation table for finding out a candidate for a new prime minister. The ruling coalition of the UCPN-Maoist and the UDMF has been following the wait-and-see policy on the president calling on the political parties to find out a common candidate for a new prime minister. The ruling coalition wants other political leaders to join it to make it a government of all parties.
