KP Sharma Oli, the chairman of the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist-Leninist), has been appointed Prime Minister of Nepal. On Sunday, President Ram Chandra Poudel appointed Oli Prime Minister who now heads a new coalition government.
This is the third occasion that Oli has become the head of Nepalese government. He previously served as Prime Minister from October 11, 2015 to August 3, 2016, and from February 15, 2018 to July 13, 2021.
Earlier, the incumbent Prime Minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, lost the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, which compelled him to step down. His key coalition partner, the CPN (United Marxist-Leninist), withdrew support for his government and chose to create a new ruling alliance with the centrist Nepali Congress, currently the largest party in the lower house of parliament.
Following an agreement to create a coalition government, Oli and Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba would each lead the government for half of the remaining term, until the next general election in November 2027. Prachanda previously won parliament’s confidence vote four times. However, he failed to win the confidence vote for the fifth time, which he intended to do within one and a half years of forming his coalition government in December 2022.
Supported by other fringe parties in parliament, the new government, with a two-thirds majority in the 275-member House, as promised by two the two largest coalition partners in the parliament, the Nepali Congress and the CPN (United Marxist-Leninist)(abbr. CPN), will provide stability to politics and good governance, accelerate development, and deliver prosperity to Nepal, regarded as one of the poor nations in the world.
A landlocked nation in South Asia, Nepal’s 20 percent of the about 29 million population live below the poverty line. According to Global Finance, Nepal ranks 41st among the poorest nations based on GDP PPP (purchasing power parity) per capita income, which currently stands at US $5,032 while the country’s per capita income in 2024 stands at US $1,456, according to Nepal’s finance minister.
Furthermore, the Congress and the UML said that the power-sharing between them came about because they desired to revise some articles of the constitution, which they believed were responsible for hung parliaments. The two ruling partners claimed that the revision of the constitution will be done to consolidate federalism, republicanism, and inclusivity.
However, outgoing Prime Minister Prachanda has questioned the rationale for revising constitutional provisions, claiming that the two parties alone cannot handle such a sensitive issue as rewriting constitutional clauses without his party’s consent.
The current constitution was promulgated in 2015 after the then-Constituent Assembly prepared it. The constituent assembly was a result of the people’s uprising in 2006. Earlier, Nepal saw a Maoist-led decade-long insurgency (1996–2006) that killed 17,000 people, including rebels and government security personnel, political activists, and ordinary citizens.
The Maoist rebels joined peaceful politics after signing a comprehensive peace accord on November 22, 2006, with Nepal’s government and seven political parties that ended the decade-long insurgency. The uprising that was participated in both by the Maoists and other parties against the autocratic King Gyanendra had turned Nepal into a federal republic, forcing the then-king to relinquish his throne. Nepal became a federal democratic republic after the implementation of the new constitution in 2015.
Regarding its international ties, Nepal has a strong friendly relationship with its two closest neighbors, India and China, while it has maintained sound ties with the West and other nations. The new government has committed to keeping its long-standing good relations with the two closest neighbors at an optimal level. The majority of the country’s trade is dependent on these two neighbors, both global economic and military powers.
Political observers say India, China, and the Western nations like the USA and Britain keep a close eye, with enough interest, on all happenings in Nepal, particularly when changes in government take place. Despite the country adhering to the foreign policy based on non-aligned principles, India and China compete with each other to keep Nepal, a geopolitically important country that joined the United Nations on December 14, 1955, under the arc of their influence, according to several Nepal watchers.
