Its been a while since we wrote about the political situation over here, that's probably due to the fact that not a great deal of progress has been made. As I mentioned a while ago the deadline for the signing of the constitution has been and gone with no sign of a constitution. At the last minute the government and opposition parties agreed to extend the interim Constitution for a further year. During the negotiations the two main parties reached an agreement, part of which was the resignation of the prime minister within a few days of the agreement being reached. A few days turned into a couple of months and the prime minister has finally resigned. The president (I'm still not sure exactly what he does) declared that parliamentary elections for a new prime minister would be held. A two third majority is needed for a candidate to be declared prime minister. The parties went to vote last week (on the 19th I think) and the voting was split three ways. One third for the Nepali congress party candidate, one third for the Maoist candidate and one third refusing to vote. Another vote was called for last Friday, during the week leading up to Friday lots of negotiating went on between the two main parties and the various minority parties. On Friday voting was carried out again with a similar deadlock. Now the president has called for a third vote on the 2nd of August and both the main parties are trying to woo the minor parties for their votes.
It looks like this could drag on for a while, much like the constitution writing process. So in the mean time Nepal hasn't really got anyone at the helm, this doesn't seemed to have had much effect on life here but the longer it drags on the more likely it will so please keep Nepal in your prayers.
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