The country’s vice-president is likely to be elected unopposed with chances of CPN-UML not fielding the party’s candidate for the post.
Eight parties including Nepali Congress (NC), CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), CPN (Unified Socialist), Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP), Janamat Party, Rastriya Janamorcha and Nagarik Unmukti Party have already decided to give the post of vice-president to JSP.
UML has yet to decide whether to field the party’s candidate or not. UML sources claim that the party will not field its candidate if JSP were to get the post of vice-president from the eight-party coalition.
UML and JSP leaders talked about the issue on the sidelines of presidential election at the Parliament Building on Thursday. A UML office-bearer told JSP lawmakers that there was no possibility of UML filing candidacy for vice-president.
JSP candidate would win the election in all likelihood with support of the eight-party coalition even if UML were to field its candidate for vice-president.
UML is preparing to not field candidate against JSP—which had allied with UML in the last elections after quitting the then ruling coalition including NC, Maoist Center, Unified Socialist and Rastriya Janamorcha just before filing of nominations due to differences over sharing of seats—to keep the chances of forging alliance for the government in the future open.
JSP was also in the seven-party ruling coalition including UML, Maoist Center and others that was formed to make Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal the prime minister on December 25, 2022. JSP, however, had not joined the government.
The ruling coalition unraveled after NC, Maoist Center, JSP and Unified Socialist decided to revive the pre-election coalition.
The election for vice-president is scheduled to be held on March 17. Nominations will have to be filed on March 13.
JSP is set to hold a meeting later Thursday to pick its candidate.
There are rumors that JSP would pick Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav, who was elected from the House of Representatives (HoR) constituency Bara-2, as its candidate for vice-president. And JSP Chairman Upendra Yadav, who lost to Janamat Party Chairman CK Raut in Saptari-2, would contest by-election from Bara-2.
