Ram Chandra Poudel elected as new Nepal president

Ram Chandra Poudel of Nepali Congress was on Thursday elected as the third president of Nepal. Poudel, a common candidate of eight-party alliance that included Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Center), received the vote of 214 lawmakers of parliament and 352 provincial assembly members. “Hearty congratulations to my friend Ram Candra Poudelji for being elected as the President,” Nepali Congress chief Sher Bahadur Deuba tweeted.
The total number of voters for the election of the President is 882, consisting of 332 Members of the Parliament and 550 members of the provincial assemblies of the seven provinces.
Shaligram, the spokesperson of the Election Commission, said 518 Provincial Assembly members and 313 Members of the Federal Parliament cast their votes in the presidential election. This is the third presidential election in Nepal since the country became a republic in 2008.
Earlier, Nepalese lawmakers on Thursday began voting to elect a new President, the outcome of which could impact the stability of the government headed by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda”.
Ram Chandra Poudel of the Nepali Congress and Subash Chandra Nembang of the CPN-UML vying for the top post. This is the third presidential election in Nepal since the country became a republic in 2008. The voting started at 10 am local time at the New Baneshwar-based parliament building here. The tenure of the current president, Bidya Devi Bhandari, will end on March 12.The Election Commission will begin counting votes at 4 pm and declare the results by 7 pm. The Presidential election is a face-off between two former speakers of the House of Representatives — Paudel, a candidate backed by the eight-party alliance led by Prime Minister Prachanda, and CPN-UML’s Nembang. The Presidential candidate Paudel, 78, and Nembang, 69, already filed their nominations last month. “I am fully confident that the members of the federal parliament and provincial assemblies will vote for me. I believe that they will make the right judgment of my long struggle,” Poudel said. Former prime minister KP Sharma-led CPN-UML withdrew its support to Prime Minister “Prachanda”-led government following a rift over backing Paudel.