KHATMANDU
\nA former Maoist guerrilla who led a decade-long insurgency against Nepal\u2019s Hindu monarchy will take over as prime minister in alliance with the main opposition after last month\u2019s election returned a hung parliament, party officials said on Sunday.
\nPushpa Kamal Dahal, who still goes by his nom de guerre Prachanda (meaning \u201cterrible\u201d or \u201cfierce\u201d) will head the new government for the first half of the five-year term with the support of the opposition Communist Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party and some other smaller groups.
\nPrachanda will step down in 2025, making way for the UML to take over the office, local media reported.
\n\u201cThis is the understanding. Remaining work of distribution of key other posts and ministries is still to be worked out,\u201d Dev Gurung, the general secretary of Prachanda\u2019s Maoist Centre party told Reuters after a meeting of the new coalition.
\nGurung said Prachanda would soon go to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to stake his claim for the prime minister\u2019s job.
\nUML\u2019s general secretary Shankar Pokhrel said the new deal \u201chas opened up the way\u201d to form the new government, more than a month after the elections.
\nThe new coalition comes to power after Prachanda, 68, surprisingly walked out of the ruling alliance led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress party. Deuba refused to back Prachanda for the prime minister\u2019s job.
\nPrachanda\u2019s Maoist Centre party won 32 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives. The UML has 78 seats, and the rest, required for the 138-majority, will be controlled by smaller groups.
\nNepal has seen 10 government changes since 2008 when the 239-year-old monarchy was abolished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KHATMANDU A former Maoist guerrilla who led a decade-long insurgency against Nepal\u2019s Hindu monarchy will take over as prime minister in alliance with the main opposition after last month\u2019s election returned a hung parliament, party officials said on Sunday. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who still goes by his nom de guerre Prachanda (meaning \u201cterrible\u201d or \u201cfierce\u201d) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-303488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n