KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 19

With less than a month remaining for presidential election, there is no clarity on who will be contending for the post of the next president.

While Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal wants the new president to be chosen through consensus, the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML want a leader of their choice to be the next president. However, neither the PM nor the two largest parties in the Parliament have disclosed who they want the next president to be.

PM Dahal reiterated the need for broader national consensus to achieve the goals of development and economic prosperity. Addressing a programme organised at Tundhikhel today, the PM said he favoured broader national consensus to conclude the remaining tasks of the peace process, to change people's lives, and to establish foreign relations with other countries in independent and balanced manner.

The PM's use of the phrase 'broader national consensus,' is being interpreted as his priority to elect the new president on the basis of national consensus.

Ever since the PM got 99 per cent votes, including that of the Nepali Congress, during the vote of confidence, the PM and his party leaders have been saying that in order to reflect the national consensus seen during the trust vote, it was important that the new president was acceptable to all forces.

CPN-MC leaders' insistence on a consensus presidential candidate has, however, not found favour with UML leaders, who claim that they had got assurances from the CPN-MC that it would support the UML candidate for president.

They have been condemning the CPN-MC for going back on its word.

UML Chair KP Sharma Oli has held multiple rounds of talks with Dahal, but the two leaders have not yet forged consensus on the new president.

Oli's track record of dissolving the HoR twice during his premiership, President Bidhya Devi Bhandari's backing of Oli's controversial moves, and Oli's continued justification of House dissolution in the new HoR are the main reasons why Dahal and other CPN-MC leaders are averse to supporting the UML's candidate for the head of state.

CPN-MC leader Matrika Prasad Yadav said if the UML failed to give a candidate acceptable to all political forces, his party might support a candidate committed to the current federal, republican, democratic system.

Yadav said Oli's justification of his decision to dissolve the HoR twice was the main stumbling block. He said Oli helped promulgate the new constitution to become the PM and he violated the constitution to remain the PM.

Even the NC leaders seem convinced that the PM was determined not to give the post of president to the UML. An NC leader said that by offering the post of president to the NC, Dahal might ensure that he would remain the PM for a fullfive year term.

When asked who would be the NC's presidential candidate if the CPN-MC agrees to back its candidate, the senior leader took Ramchandra Paudel's name.

Senior NC leader Bimalendra Nidhi said party President Sher Bahadur Deuba would not be the presidential candidate as he wanted to play an active role in the HoR.

Meanwhile, the CPN (Unified Socialist) Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal today said at a programme organised by his party's student wing, that the fate of the current coalition hinges on the presidential election scheduled for March 9. He said CPN-MC leaders feared that if the post of president was given to the CPN- UML, the UML could exert undue pressure on the PM to have its say in running the government.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 20, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.