Nepal PM Oli quits just before no-confidence vote after allies depart
Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Oli resigned on Sunday, nine months after coming to power, minutes before parliament was to vote on a no confidence motion he was likely to lose.
Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Oli resigned on Sunday, nine months after coming to power, minutes before parliament was to vote on a no confidence motion he was likely to lose.
Oli, 64, was forced to quit after allies of his multi-party coalition deserted the government accusing him of not honouring power sharing deals that helped install him as prime minister in October.
“Before coming to parliament, I had met the president and submitted my resignation to her. After the budget-related bills got defeated, I realised that I had lost trust of majority of the members of this House,” said Oli in a speech in parliament just ahead of the scheduled no-confidence vote.
“We brought the motion against the Prime Minister as he did nothing to fulfil agreements and work towards forging national unity and consensus,” CPN-MC chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda had said earlier.
The Maoist leader accused Oli of being self-centred and egocentric and said a new government was needed to address demands of Madhesis and other minority groups and also to implement the constitution.
Prachanda, who had become Prime Minister in 2008 after the end of the civil war, is expected to return to the same post after a gap of nine years.
Oli (64), who accused India of imposing an unofficial blockade on Nepal before coming to power, is also seen as getting cosy with Beijing in an attempt to snub New Delhi.
“When I came to power, India-Nepal ties were at a historic low. I have been able to nearly end the bitterness in relations during my India visit and efforts at various levels,” Oli said.
He added that his government had inked trade and transit treaties with China in order to reduce sole dependence on India and also to speed up economic development. “The relations between Nepal and China and Nepal and India have their own peculiarities and it is not proper to compare the two,” Oli said.
As per a deal between CPN-MC and NC, Prachanda will head the government for nine months and will be succeeded by NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba till the next general elections.
Senior NC leader Bimalendra Nidhi said his party decided to remove the government as Oli wasn’t serious about addressing the demands of Madhes-based parties.
Parties from the Madhes region bordering India have been demanding changes including fresh demarcation of state boundaries in the new constitution. In recent months, other smaller groups have also joined hands.
Subhash Chandra Nemwang, who belongs to Oli’s party Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, stressed that removal of the government at this juncture would affect national unity.
With agency inputs
