Paudel misses lady luck in 13th attempt

Himalayan News Service

KATHMANDU: Efforts to find a new leadership for the country once again ended in fiasco with the only prime ministerial candidate Ramchandra Paudel facing defeat in the vote at the parliament today for the 13th time.

The 14th runoff is scheduled for Friday, although it has become quite clear from the unchanging stances of the political parties that the House could just be engaged in a never ending exercise in futility.

The sole candidate in the race Paudel garnered 98 votes. Two votes were cast against him while 44 lawmakers stayed neutral out of the 144 votes cast.

Maintaining their earlier stance, Unified CPN-M, UML, MJF and a few others didn’t vote. MJF-D, Sadbhavana and a few others continued with their neutrality.

Paudel is the only candidate left in the race after Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal withdrew his candidacy from the seventh run-off. The parliament has failed, so far, to elect a new prime minister for nearly four months after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned on June 30.

After today’s polling, Paudel said that the parties were doing homework to hammer out a collective solution and they would intensify talks after Dahalreturned from China. But he reiterated that he would not withdraw his candidacy until the parties reached consensus on the issues of peace, the new constitution and the question of who should be the PM.