Kathmandu: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Friday lost the trust vote in the House of Representatives.
This was the fifth time he sought the confidence vote from Parliament, having secured the vote of confidence four consecutive times after being appointed the head of the government on December 25, 2022.
Out of 258 lawmakers present in the House, a total of 63 lawmakers cast vote in his favor, while 194 lawmakers voted against him. One lawmaker abstained from voting.
PM Dahal sought the confidence vote after the two largest parties in federal parliament–the Nepali Congress and the CPN (UML)–joined hands to form a new government of ‘national consensus.’
Since 2013 Constituent Assembly elections, when Maoist party’s strength and popularity significantly diminished, Prachanda has been building and breaking alliances with Nepali Congress and CPN-UML to stay relevant in power. His party Maoist Center has been a key coalition partner in every government formed after the 2022 general elections.
UML leaders have accused Prachanda of plotting to break ties with UML and revert to earlier coalition with Nepali Congress.
Betrayed by Prachanda more than twice, UML and Congress came together to build a new coalition–perhaps the first of its kind in Nepal’s parliamentary practice–where both the first and second largest party will be in the government.
While UML and Congress have tried to justify the new coalition as a combined effort of the two parties for initiating political reforms to ensure stability and good governance, people are not convinced the coalition of the strange bedfellows will live up to its stated agendas.
Prime Minister Prachanda has said that UML and Congress got united to unseat him from power because his government was investigating some high-profile corruption cases involving leaders from UML and Congress.
Addressing the parliament on Friday, Prachanda said that two largest parties joined hands out of fear as they saw the current government starting the process to investigate corruption cases.
As PM Dahal failed the floor test, former PM KP Sharma Oli, also the chair of CPN-UML, is set to be appointed as the new prime minister as two largest parties have agreed that he will lead the government for the next one and a half years. The remaining one and half years would be led by Congress chief Sher Bahadur Deuba.
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