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The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre has decided to keep all options open for government formation and is keen to lead the new government. The decision was taken at a meeting of party office-bearers in Kathmandu on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, deputy chairman of the CPN-Maoist Centre and former Speaker said, "We are not breaking the alliance but we've decided to keep all the options open to form the government." Asked if the party is open for alliance with the opposition CPN-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), Mahara said, "We have decided to leave every option open but we haven't decided that we will be leaving or breaking the alliance." He said a full-fledged analysis of the party performance would be done once the results are announced. After the elections held on November 20, the CPN-Maoist Centre has raised demand for the Prime Minister's post. Out of 165 constituencies under the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP), results of 163 constituencies have been announced and the Nepali Congress has secured the highest number of seats. Having won 17 seats, the CPN-Maoist Centre is tailing at the third position. The Nepali Congress has won 55 seats while the CPN-UML has won 44 seats under the FPTP system. The vote count of Proportionate Representation is still underway with CPN-UML leading the count. However, it will still stand second as Nepali Congress will lead the number of seats in the parliament. Notably, not a single party has emerged victorious in the Nepali parliament elections and crossed the majority mark forcing the parties to forge alliances to form a government. With CPN-Maoist Centre demanding the top post, there is speculation that it would again forge an alliance with the opposition- CPN-UML to lead the government. Leaders of the opposition UML have suggested Party Chairman KP Sharma Oli to take Maoist Center in confidence to lead the government. Meanwhile, Former Nepali Prime Minister and Chairman of CPN-Maoist Centre Pushpa Kamal Dahal in Saturday's briefing reiterated that the party's performance in the November election was weaker than expected. "Our performance in House of Representatives didn't match our expectations but we performed well at the province level. We had expected a satisfactory result when we contested the election by forging an alliance, more than 30 seats were expected in the House of Representatives and our expectation fell short of 10-12 seats." According to an official present in Saturday's meeting, Pushpa Kamal Dahal said, "It was because the vote transfer from Nepali Congress's side didn't take place and there has been a rise in the number of independent candidates." (ANI)
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