The leader of Nepal's communist party was named the Himalayan nation's new Prime Minister Thursday (Feb 15), a day after the results of parliamentary elections were finalized. Khadga Prasad Oli, who also served as PM in 2015, was to take the oath of office later Thursday, a spokesman for the president's office said.
Oli will be leading a coalition government made up of his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), which took the most seats in the November and December 2017 elections. The poll results were made official Wednesday night, leading PM Sher Bahadur Deuba to resign earlier Thursday after eight months in office.
Oli's biggest challenge as PM will be balancing Nepal's relationship with its giant neighbors India and China, as well as managing lingering internal strife stemming from the country's new constitution and transition from a monarchy.
Oli, 65, was born in a village in east Nepal and has been involved in politics since he was young. He worked up the ranks of the communist party and was jailed a total of 14 years for opposing the autocratic rule of Nepal's monarchs. The monarchs banned political parties until 1990, when street protests forced then King Birendra to allow political parties to contest elections and turned him into a constitutional monarch.
The monarchy was formally abolished in 2008.
- Source: abcnews
