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Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns Ahead of a No-Confidence Vote
published on : 07-25-2016
Category : Appointments
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal’s prime minister, K. P. Sharma Oli, resigned on Sunday, bringing an abrupt end to a nine-month-old government that struggled with the task of post-earthquake reconstruction and at times took a defiant stance against its large neighbor India. Mr. Oli resigned moments before the country’s Parliament was expected to pass a no-confidence motion. After defending himself against sharp criticism from opposition parties, he said he would step down “to pave the way to elect a new prime minister in a changed context.” Mr. Oli’s government was Nepal’s eighth in the last 10 years, and its end ushered in a new round of political turmoil. Two large political groups pushing for Mr. Oli’s removal, the Nepali Congress party and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), complained that he had failed to resolve disputes over the country’s new Constitution, to jump-start the stalled reconstruction process or to resolve cases dating back to the government’s decade-long conflict with Maoist rebels, which ended in 2006. Mr. Oli’s supporters, however, attributed his downfall to geopolitics. Mr. Oli made it a priority to build Nepal’s ties with China, rather than with India, signing trade and energy supply treaties in Beijing in March. Gopal Khanal, one of his foreign policy advisers, said the two countries were poised to announce new rail links during a visit to Nepal this year by President Xi Jinping of China. Meanwhile, relations with India have deteriorated. In May, Mr. Oli’s cabinet recalled Nepal’s ambassador to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay, accusing him of antigovernment activities, and refused to approve a visit to India by Nepal’s president, Bidhya Devi Bhandari. Today’s Headlines: Asia Edition Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the Asian morning. The Nepali Congress party and the Maoists have agreed to share power in a rotation. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the leader of the Maoist party, will succeed Mr. Oli as prime minister and then, in nine months, pass the reins to the Nepali Congress leader. Mr. Oli was elected in October during a flare of anger toward India. The Madhesi, an ethnic group in the country’s south with close cultural ties to India, were demanding revisions to the new Constitution. India, which has long monopolized fuel supplies to Nepal, was widely blamed for preventing fuel tankers from crossing the border, leading to crippling fuel shortages. Mr. Oli’s tone toward India never softened. While his government did amend the Constitution, it refused one of the key Madhesi demands: to redraw the country’s federal provinces. Madhesi activists pressed for the no-confidence motion against Mr. Oli. Before resigning in Parliament on Sunday, Mr. Oli expressed concern that projects he had begun with Chinese support, such as a railroad connecting Tibet to central Nepal, would now founder. Laxman Lal Karna, a member of Parliament representing a Madhesi-populated area, said he hoped the new government would be more receptive than Mr. Oli’s. “Otherwise, this government will be no different than the previous one,” he said. “We are closely watching on how the new coalition government moves ahead.” The poor and mountainous nation of Nepal is sandwiched between India and China, a predicament sometimes compared by Nepalese to “a yam between two boulders.” Since a devastating earthquake in 2015, able-bodied Nepalis have poured out of the country, often to the Persian Gulf nations, in hopes of earning enough to rebuild their family homes.
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