Prime Minister
On 3 February 2011, after seven months of political gridlock in which no candidate could muster enough votes to be elected as Prime Minister, Jhala Nath Khanal was elected as Prime Minister by the Constituent Assembly. Khanal received 368 votes in the 601-member parliament, while his nearest rivals, Ram Chandra Poudel of the Nepali Congress and Bijay Kumar Gachhedar of Madhesi People's Rights Forum (Democratic), got 122 votes and 67 votes respectively.
Nepal had no proper government since Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned in June 2010. Sixteen rounds of voting in parliament since July were unable to produce a new prime minister as no political party could muster a majority. However, on 3 February 2011 the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (Nepal's largest party) withdrew its candidate, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (“Prachanda”), and backed Khanal, who as a result became the third Prime Minister of Nepal since it became a republic in 2008.
Khanal's immediate tasks as Prime Minister included the preparation of a new republican constitution by a May 28 deadline, and negotiating the future of some 20,000 Maoist combatants.
Read more about this topic: Jhala Nath Khanal
Famous quotes containing the words prime minister, prime and/or minister:
“Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life. What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? What do you do after that? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.”
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)
“My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.”
—Chidiock Tichborne (1558–1586)
“Rosalynn said, “Jimmy, if we could only get Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat up here on this mountain for a few days, I believe they might consider how they could prevent another war between their countries.” That gave me the idea, and a few weeks later, I invited both men to join me for a series of private talks. In September 1978, they both came to Camp David.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)