President calls on MPs to claim premiership

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari has called on members of the House of Representatives to claim premiership furnishing grounds to win the vote of confidence in the Parliament.

As per Article 76 (5), the president can appoint any member of parliament if the member presents sufficient ground that he or she can win the vote of confidence in the Parliament.

Issuing a press statement, Assistant Spokesperson at the Office of the President, Keshav Prasad Ghimire, has said that President Bhandari has given a deadline of 5:00 pm on Friday for furnishing the claim by an MP for the appointment as the prime minister with the assurance of winning the vote of confidence in the parliament.

President made such a call to initiate the process for the appointment of Prime Minister on the request from the Prime Minister as per the decision taken from the Council of Ministers on May 20. The Prime Minister will be appointed in accordance with Article 76 (5). 

CPN-UML chairperson Oli was appointed the prime minister on May 14, four days after having lost the vote of confidence that he had sought at the House of Representatives.

After Oli had lost the vote of confidence, President Bidhya Devi Bhandari had called on HoR members to claim premiership with the support of two or more political parties by May 13, 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 MC only 49 votes the mathematics to form a government all depended on the Congress winning the support of Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (JSP-N).

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.

It has to be noted 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.

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