Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that the coalition partners will decide about presidential candidate on consensus.
PM Dahal has said so following a meeting with CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli at the latter’s residence in Balkot Friday afternoon. He has also stressed that the ruling coalition has not been broken.
“We are together. Being together does not show it is broken,” he said about the status of ruling coalition. “We will conclude about president through consensus. It will be concluded in a couple of days.”
The two top coalition leaders had talked for more than two hours on Thursday as well amidst reports of likely support of CPN (Maoist Center) for Nepali Congress (NC) candidate in the presidential election.
Oli reminded Dahal of their Christmas Day deal during the one-on-one meeting at the latter’s residence in Baluwatar on Thursday.
Dahal quit the coalition with NC and Unified Socialist on December 25, 2022 and became prime minister (PM) with support of CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party, RPP, Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), Janamat Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party after Nepali Congress (NC) Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to make him PM first.
UML has been saying that the party should get the post of president as per the power-sharing agreement reached with Dahal at the time of forming the government while PM Dahal has been talking about national consensus for president since NC voted for his government during the floor test.
Oli reiterated the party’s demand for the post of president as per the prior agreement during the meeting with Dahal Thursday. “The agreement on December 25 was to give president and speaker to UML. Dahal himself came to our chairman’s residence in Balkot and agreed. Chairman has been repeatedly reminding Dahal about that,” a UML leader close to Oli told Setopati. “Dahal proposed to take turns even for speaker when there was talks about splitting the term of PM equally. Our chairman also agreed for that.”
Another UML leader has told Setopati that the suspicion that Dahal is trying to step back from the Christmas Day deal is rising. “He has not said that UML candidate would not do yet. But there are grounds to suspect. What the national consensus he wants is not clear. We will not accept if he is seeking national consensus for a non-UML candidate.”
A CPN (Maoist Center) leader told Setopati that Dahal repeated his wish for national consensus for president even Thursday. “UML chairman has not rejected national consensus but he seems curious about how to seek that national consensus.”
Dahal has been cosying up to Deuba since the floor test and Maoist sources claim that the party will take a decision to support NC candidate during the presidential election.
Some Maoist leaders feel that UML candidates like Subash Chandra Nembang and Ashta Laxmi Shakya can be accepted for president. But most of the Maoist Center leaders had spoken against voting for UML candidate in the presidential election during the party’s standing committee meeting at the end of January.
Multiple sources claim that top NC and Maoist leaders have already agreed about the presidential election and there is unanimity in NC to reach formal agreement with Maoist Center for presidential election
