As per the agreement, Dahal was appointed the new prime minister by President Bidya Devi Bhandari late Sunday afternoon.
The Maoist Center and UML have also agreed to share the post of parliament speaker on a rotational basis. The post of president will be held by the UML for a full five-year term. “Now that we have agreed to form an agenda-based government, the remaining issue of power-sharing will be settled after the government formation,” said UML General Secretary Ishwar Pokhrel. Rastriya Swatantra Party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Janata Samajbadi Party, Janamat Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party will also join the coalition. Together, they will have 170 seats in the 275-member parliament. The NC remains the largest party with 89 seats. The UML and Maoists have 78 and 32 seats respectively. Until Sunday morning, the coming together of UML and Maoist Center was unexpected, given the bad blood between Oli and Dahal. Since the Maoists contested the Nov 20 general elections by forming an electoral alliance with the NC and three other fringe parties, it was widely believed that the five-party coalition would prevail. But Dahal abruptly abandoned the coalition ship saying the NC tried to ditch him by taking an “unrealistic condition” of taking both prime ministerial and presidential posts. “Just a week earlier, Deuba had agreed to form a rotational government, where I would lead until mid-term. But he reneged on the agreement,” said Dahal. “He (Deuba) told me that he was under extreme pressure from his own party leaders, that he could not convince them.” The Maoists chairman also said that it was never his intention to break the five-party coalition. “There was a new situation after Deuba decided not to honor the agreement,” he added. Maoist leader Barsha Man Pun had been working behind the scenes to plan for a contingency, in case the NC decides to play spoilsport. He had been holding meetings with the UML to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition government. On Saturday, Pun had said his party would break the coalition if it didn’t get the leadership of the new government. Inside the NC, Deuba was hard-pressed not to hand over the prime ministerial post to the Maoists. Some leaders even advised abandoning the Maoist party and forming a coalition government by bringing together other fringe parties. Clearly, the NC didn’t anticipate the prospect of Dahal patching things up with Oli. The UML and Maoists are once again returning to power, just like they did after the 2017 elections. The two parties merged to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) in 2018, only to break up less than three years later after Oli didn’t honor his promise to hand over the prime ministerial post to Dahal after 2.5 years. The rivalry between Oli and Dahal deepened over the years, as the NCP breakup was particularly hard on the UML, whose senior leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal also soon left the party to form CPN (Unified Socialist). Oli, who was leading the government at the time, tried unsuccessfully twice to dissolve the parliament to hold on to power, but was eventually ousted at the order of the Supreme Court. Oli was replaced by Deuba, who would lead a five-coalition government with the Maoists, Unified Socialist, Janata Samajbadi and Rastriya Janamorcha. These same five parties forged an electoral alliance in the Nov 20 elections. Since the elections, the UML has been sitting on the fence regarding the government formation process. It was biding its time for the five-party alliance to finally crack. Soon after the elections, the UML had said that it was ready to support the NC in the government formation process. But, at the same time, it was also holding closed-door negotiations with the Maoists. Despite the strained relationship between Oli and Dahal, the second-rung leaders from the two parties were in continuous talks to revive a coalition government led by leftist parties. In a way, things have come full circle for Oli and his party. Disagreement inside the same coalition that expelled the UML from power back in 2021 has become the reason why the party is now returning to power.
