Leader of Nepal’s largest communist party named new prime minister
Al Jazeera
Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli has become the new PM after the country’s two largest parties form a coalition.
The leader of Nepal’s largest communist party, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, has been named the prime minister after shaping a new alliance in the country’s turbulent parliament.
A statement on Sunday by the office of the president said the 72-year-old Oli will take his oath of office on Monday, the fourth time he is becoming the prime minister.
He is replacing Pushpa Kamal Dahal, whose 18-month-old government collapsed on Friday after Oli’s party, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, agreed to a new coalition with the centre-left Nepali Congress party.
Oli will now have to succeed where his predecessor failed earlier this week, securing a vote of confidence in parliament to continue in office within a month. The two parties have more than half the members in parliament required for a majority vote.
Under the new power-sharing arrangement, Oli and the Nepali Congress party’s president Sher Bahadur Deuba, 78, will rotate in holding the prime minister’s post until the next general election in 2027.
