Nepal ends political deadlock, elects Sushil Koirala as new PM

Tuesday, 11 February 2014 00:27 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

REUTERS: Nepal’s parliament picked a social democrat as its new Prime Minister on Monday after a last-minute power sharing deal ended a deadlock that had lasted more than two months after an election. Sushil Koirala, the head of the centrist Nepali Congress party, was elected with support from the communist UML party, which holds the second largest number of seats in parliament and which wanted the assembly to hold new presidential elections. Koirala needed to be elected by a majority in parliament and his Nepali Congress party controls 194 seats in the 601-seat assembly. The UML is made up of communists with more liberal political views compared to the Maoist former rebels who waged a civil war in the Himalayan nation until 2006. Koirala, 76, replaces Khil Raj Regmi, the Supreme Court chief justice who has headed a caretaker government since March last year. He now has the job of overseeing the preparation of a new constitution, one of the conditions of a 2006 peace deal that ended the decade-long war. A previous attempt to write the charter failed after the term of a constituent assembly expired in 2012.