Nepali Congress (NC) senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel has been elected the third president of Nepal.
The joint candidate of NC, CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), CPN (Unified Socialist), Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP), Janamat Party, Rastriya Janamorcha and Nagarik Unmukti Party has defeated CPN-UML Vice-chairman Subash Chandra Nembang in the election held Thursday.
Paudel secured a total of 33,802 weighted votes. He got 16,906 weighted votes from the federal lawmakers and 16,896 from the provincial ones, according to UML lawmaker Mahesh Bartaula.
Nembang received 15,518 weighted votes. He got 7,742 from the center and 7,776 from the provinces.
The result, however, has yet to be formally announced.
Amrita Sharma said that 313 federal lawmakers and 518 provincial lawmakers cast their votes in the election.
According to Sharma, 32 provincial assembly members – 28 from Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), three from Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP), and one from Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) – abstained from voting.
There are 275 House of Representatives members and 59 National Assembly members. Among them, 14 lawmakers from RPP and Prem Suwal of NWPP remained neutral.
Nepali Congress lawmaker Chandra Bhandari and CPN (Maoist Center) lawmaker Barsha Man Pun could not vote as they are undergoing treatment. CPN-UML lawmaker Laxmi Koiri is absconding while JSP lawmaker Shahnaz Rahman died recently.
The voting was held from 10 AM to 3 PM Thursday.
The 334 federal lawmakers including 275 House of Representatives (HoR) members and 59 National Assembly (NA) members are given weightage of 79 for each vote while the 550 provincial lawmakers are given weightage of 48.
The weightage of each federal lawmaker is calculated by dividing the total population of the country (as per 2011 Census) by the total number of lawmakers (334) and dividing that number by 1,000.
The weightage of each provincial lawmaker is also calculated similarly replacing the total number of federal lawmakers with that of provincial lawmakers (550).
The total weighted votes for the presidential election were 52,707 including 26,307 for federal lawmakers and 26,400 for provincial lawmakers. The winning candidate must receive at least 26,354 weighted votes.
