KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 5
The ruling alliance today held a meeting and jointly issued a press release expressing the partners' commitment to continue the current alliance.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki read out the press release before mediapersons after the ruling alliance's meeting held at Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's residence in Baluwatar.
PM Deuba, CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal, and Vice Chair of Rastriya Janamorcha Durga Paudel signed and jointly issued the letter.
"The recently held provincial and parliamentary polls have reconfirmed the necessity and relevance of the current alliance. There is a need for continuing the current alliance in order to solve the current challenges facing the country. We are grateful to all people and voters for showing their faith and love for the alliance," read the press release.
"We express our commitment to move ahead more unitedly in the days ahead by respecting the feelings of voters and keeping in mind interests of the country."
The release added that despite alliance partners' clear directives to lower committees of their parties to support alliance candidates, in some places the rank and file did not follow the alliance's directives.
The alliance partners said they would review these problems in the days ahead and would try to address them.
They said election results had given a clear message to the partners to move ahead in the spirit of consensus and collaboration to achieve goals of political stability and economic prosperity. They said the completion of local, provincial, and parliamentary elections had saved the constitution and put the country on the path to political stability and economic prosperity.
In response to a journalist's query, Karki said if the alliance fell short of 138 members required for the formation of the government, it would try to muster support of other parties.
Asked who will lead the next government, CPN-MC leader Dev Prasad Gurung said they did not discuss that as the time was not ripe for it. CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Beduram Bhusal said the question of who should lead the next government would arise only after the Election Commission submitted results to the president and parties represented in the House of Representatives elected their parliamentary leaders.
CPN-Maoist Centre leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha told THT that the main message of today's meeting was that the current alliance would remain intact and coalition partners would amicably resolve the leadership issue. It is very likely that NC and CPN-MC will have their leaders take turns to be the prime minister.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 6, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
