After the 11th failed attempt to elect a prime minister on Thursday, the parliament set 10 October for the 12th round of election. This round will also be futile as the leaders have already agreed upon 26 October for the 13th round.
The lone prime ministerial candidate, Ram Chandra Poudel, secured only
104 votes in his favour, which is way below the required 301 votes to win.
His party, NC, has 114 votes in the parliament. Neither party issued whip
to its members, nor the members themselves felt the need to show up at
the voting. Only 145 members of parliament out of 601 participated in Thursday’s voting.
NC wanted to push the election date further but UCPN (Maoist)
wanted no delay as it wants to make Poudel lose as many times as
possible. Poudel can never win as long as UCPN (Maoist) and UML come
together, as they command a majority in the parliament. They have
signed a written agreement that they will vote for a consensus
candidate only.