Kharga Prasad (KP) Sharma Oli was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Nepal.
He was sworn in on Monday (July 15). Earlier on Sunday, the country’s President Ram Chandra Paudel announced him as the new Prime Minister.
72-year-old KP Sharma is the head of the country’s Communist Party. This time his party formed a coalition government with the centre-left Nepali Congress Party.
With this, KP Sharma Oli became the Prime Minister of Nepal for the fourth time. While taking the oath to President Ram Chandra Paudel, he said, I, KP Sharma Oli, pledge in the name of the country and the people that I will abide by the Constitution… and fulfill my duties as Prime Minister.
KP Sharma was elected as Prime Minister for the first time in 2015. He was re-elected in 2018. In addition, in 2021, when there was unrest in the country’s parliament, he was given the responsibility of the prime minister for a short period of time.
His predecessor and former coalition government ally Pushp Kamal Dahal lost the trust vote last Friday. He had to step down after just 18 months as Prime Minister.
The House of Representatives (HOR), the lower house of Nepal’s Parliament, has 275 seats. A prime minister needs at least 138 votes to retain power after winning a confidence vote.
Pushp Kamal Dahal got only 63 votes out of 258 legislators present in last Friday’s vote of confidence. 194 lawmakers voted against him. Another abstained from voting.
Under the leadership of Oli, the Maoists started a guerrilla war against the monarchy in Nepal in the 1990s. The monarchy ended in Nepal a decade and a half ago after a long civil war. Since then, the Southeast Asian country has been plagued by political unrest.
Source: Reuters
