The president, in his first call in writing on November 23, had urged the political parties to nominate a prime ministerial candidate through consensus and come up with an appropriate proposal to form a new government within a week. [break]The president had to issue a deadline in writing to the political parties after repeated informal calls yielded no result.
However, the president had to repeatedly extend the deadline upon the request of leaders from the four major political forces after they failed to agree on a candidate to head a new government.
"This time, the president is for consulting leaders from political parties other than the four political forces. But it is yet to be scheduled," the president´s press advisor, Rajendra Dahal, told Republica. However, the president will consult leaders from smaller parties only after hearing from the leaders of the big four about the progress in finding a common candidate for the post.
Officials said the president will consult the chiefs of political parties that were represented in the dissolved Constituent Assembly (CA). There were 33 political parties in the CA. Lately, some of the parties, including the ruling UCPN (Maoist) and MPRF-Democratic, have become vertically split and the spliter groups have formed new parties.
Consensus in nominating a prime ministerial candidate seems nowhere in sight as leaders from the major political parties have been sharply divided over who should lead the election government.
The opposition alliance led by the Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML have proposed NC President Sushil Koirala as the alliance´s common candidate but the ruling alliance is against this.
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