CPN-UML and Nepali Congress (NC) have agreed to form national consensus government.
UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba signed an agreement to that regard late Monday night pledging to reform electoral system and system of governance among other things, according to a leader.
Both the top leaders, however, have agreed to keep their agreement secret for now as the two parties have yet to discuss those issues internally and take official decision.
Only a handful of leaders were present when Oli and Deuba signed the agreement with Deuba, his wife Arzu Rana Deuba, Chief Whip Ramesh Lekhak and central member Gyanendra Bahadur Karki present from the main opposition party.
General Secretary Shankar Pokharel was the only other leader from UML.
Another leader confirmed that the two parties would hold comprehensive discussion internally on Tuesday before making the agreement letter public and taking that into implementation.
UML and NC will take turns to lead the government for the remaining term of the House of Representatives with Oli becoming the prime minister (PM) first as per the agreement. Deuba will then lead the government.
The two biggest parties in the House have agreed to form the government as per Article 76(2) of the Constitution.
The agreement means that the ruling coalition will change yet again in just four months.
The coalition between Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Center) had broken giving way to a new ruling coalition of the Maoists UML on March 3.
The previous ruling coalition was formed around a year before that ahead of the election for president after Dahal broke the then coalition with UML. NC, Maoist Center, JSP and Unified Socialist had then decided to revive the pre-election alliance.
Dahal had quit the pre-election alliance 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) President Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to make him PM first.
Oli had assured NC that UML will not ally with Maoist Center at any cost and would instead ally with NC to form the new government to encourage Deuba to break the agreement to make Dahal PM first.
