Oli to be sworn in today as prime minister

Chairperson of CPN UML KP Sharma Oli will be sworn in as the prime minister today. Oli is being appointed the prime minister four days after having the vote of confidence that he had sought at the House of Representatives.

PM Oli will be taking the oath of office and secrecy at 2:30 pm today at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Similarly, the ministers who had automatically lost their positions after PM Oli lost the vote of confidence in the Parliament on May 10 will also be sworn in today.

After PM Oli had lost the vote of confidence at the HoR, President Bidhya Devi Bhandari had called on the parliamentarians to form a new government as per Article 76 (2) of the Constitution of Nepal. The deadline to do so was by 9 pm on Thursday (May 13).

Opposition party Nepali Congress did start an exercise to form the government with backing from CPN (Maoist Centre). However, with Congress having only 61 votes and the CPN (Maoist Centre) only 49 votes the mathematics to form a government all depended on the Congress winning the support of Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (JSP).

Though Upendra Yadav, Chairperson of JSP, was willing to support Sher Bahadur Deuba, President of Nepali Congress to form a government, another Chairperson of JSP, Mahanta Thakur, was not willing to forge an alliance with the Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre) to form a government.

So, President Bhandari was obliged to appoint Oli as prime minister as per Article 76 (3) of the Constitution. According to Article 76 (3), if two or more parties cannot form a government then the president can appoint the leader with the biggest party of the House of Representatives as prime minister. However, what has to be noted is that a prime minister appointed through Article 76 (3) must still win the vote of confidence in the Parliament within 30 days of the date of appointment.

The one question that crops up now is will PM Oli be able to win the vote of confidence within 30 days after having lost the process just four days back. If PM Oli fails to win the vote of confidence this time too then President Bhandari can implement Article 76 (5) of the Constitution which states that any parliamentarian can lay claim to the premiership if he or she submits sufficient ground that he or she can win the vote of confidence in the HoR.

What has to be noted again is that a prime minister appointed through Article 76 (5) also must win the vote of confidence in the Parliament within 30 days of the date of appointment. If the prime minister fails to do so then the president on the recommendation of the prime minister shall dissolve the House and call for elections to be held within six months of the House being dissolved.

With the numbers just not adding up for any single party at the moment and with chances of an alliance that can form a majority government still looking slim Nepal could likely be heading for an election.