The UCPN (Maoist) candidate Baburam Bhattarai has been elected the 35th prime minister of the country. Bhattarai secured 340 of 575 votes cast on Sunday’s prime ministerial election.
The another contestant for the post, NC’s parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Poudel lost the votes with secured 235 votes. Poudel had lost 16 times in the previous prime ministerial election six months ago. The party had picked him as a majority candidate and Sher Bahadur Deuba was projected as a consensus candidate from his party.
The UCPN (Maoist) is the largest party with 240 seats, with 236 members in the CA at present. The party signed a four-point deal with Madhesi Alliance just before Sunday’s election, which secured the party 65 votes of the alliance for the win.
The third largest party UML voted for NC’s candidate Poudel saying that the Maoists’ time bound proposal on peace and constitution was not convincing enough to conclude the peace and constitution process.
57-year old Bhattarai was born in a lower middle-class peasant family in Belbas of Gorkha district. He won the CA election from Gorkha constituency No 2 with the highest number of votes and highest margin against the nearest rival (46,272 votes against 6,143; nearly 82% of the votes). Bhattarai is the party’s Vice Chairman and political ideologue.
The overwhelming votes he received on Sunday’s election however neither guarantees the stability of the government nor the completion of the ongoing peace and constitution writing process. Bhattarai will have to include other parties outside the government into the government.
TMLP leader Mahantha Thakur suggested Bhattarai to take NC and UML into confidence to conclude the peace process successfully. “They have taken a great risk and responsibility to conclude the process. I would like to ask the Maoist friends to make reviews of their proposal on peace and constitution writing and take the ongoing the peace process to a conclusion,” he said.
The Madhesi alliance support is not without condition. The Maoists will have to address Madhesi issues including the issue of state restructuring and governance.
“It was never my wish for majoritarian system but we entered into it technically,” Bhattarai said, “but there is no alternative to a national unity government. All previous government of majority failed and I don’t want to be in the list,”