KATHMANDU, MARCH 09
Nepali Congress leader Ramchandra Paudel, 78, has been elected the President of Nepal.
Paudel, who was the common candidate of the nine-party alliance that included the Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist Centre, secured 33,802 weighted votes. He received the votes of 214 federal lawmakers and 352 province lawmakers.
The president is elected through an electoral college consisting of federal lawmakers and members of provincial assemblies.
Paudel's rival Subas Chandra Nembang secured 15,518 weighted votes from 96 federal and 162 provincial lawmakers.
Five votes - one of a federal lawmaker and four provincial lawmakers - were declared invalid.
Election Officer Mahesh Sharma Paudel declared Paudel the winner after he won the majority weighted votes of the 52,628 electoral college.
The Rabi Lamichhane-led Rastriya Swatantra Party, which has 20 lawmakers in the House of Representatives, also voted for Paudel.
Rastriya Prajantantra Party stayed neutral in the presidential election.
Paudel, a former deputy prime minister and former speaker, will assume the top position on Monday when incumbent Bidhya Devi Bhandari completes her tenure.
CPN (Unified Socialist) Chair and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told mediapersons after the presidential election that he had taken the election result positively. "We have a result that reflects the strength of our alliance and it's very encouraging," he added. Nepal said that distribution of the spoils of opportunity was not important, but serving the people and the country was. He said the government would have to shoulder this responsibility seriously.
Know your new president
Paudel was born on 14 October 1944 to Durga Prasad Paudel and Rishi Maya Paudel. He hails from Byas Municipality of Tanahun district. Paudel obtained Master's Degree in Nepali literature from Tribhuvan University.
Known as a socialist thinker with clean political image, he started his political career from the Student's Union in Pokhara in 1959 and took part in the agitation against the royal takeover in 1960.
Arrested multiple times during Panchayat regime for his crusade for democracy. He spent almost 11 years in jail during the Panchayat regime. After the royal takeover of 2001, Paudel was put under house arrest for almost one year in that period.
He has penned more than a dozen books, including the history of the Nepali Congress.
Paudel spoke against then king Mahendra usurpation of power on 15 December 1960 when Prime Minister BP Koirala was jailed for nine years.
Paudel was first arrested in 1961 when the NC launched an armed rebellion against the Panchayat system.
He was jailed for one year during students' agitation in 1963. Two years later he was jailed again. He met NC leader Girija Prasad Koirala at Nakkhu jail for the first time.
In 1967, Paudel was imprisoned for 15 months.
He was again arrested in 1971 and incarcerated for four years for protesting police brutality against land rights seekers in Ramailo Jhoda in eastern Nepal.
He was arrested again in 1977 for taking part in the NC conference in Patna, India.
Paudel was elected from Tanahun consitituency-1 in the 1991 general election held after the popular movement of 1990.
He won parliamentary elections in 1994, 1999, 2008 and 2013 from his home district of Tanahun.
In 2022 parliamentary elections, Paudel was elected from Tanahun constituency-1.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 10, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
