Three-time prime minister KP Sharma Oli, head of the larger Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) is expected to form the next government with the backing of the centre-left Nepali Congress.
Oli, 72, is then expected to yield the post to Congress leader and five-time prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, 78, later in the parliamentary term under a deal negotiated between the two parties.
“BREAKING PROMISES”
Political journalist Kunda Dixit told AFP that the alliance between Deuba and Oli may prove more stable because they represented the largest two parties in parliament and were “not so ideologically opposed” to each other.
“But we have seen leaders breaking promises and back-stabbing each other in the past, so anything is possible,” he added.
Dahal’s Maoists have played a key role in Nepal’s politics for more than 20 years, after waging a decade-long insurgency against government forces that claimed more than 16,000 lives.
The civil war ended in a 2006 peace deal that abolished Nepal’s monarchy and saw the Maoists brought into government, with Dahal the first post-war prime minister.
