Nepal assembly elects ‘clean’ Sushil Koirala as new PM

Nepal's fractious parliament today elected veteran politician Sushil Koirala, 74, as prime minister Monday, with the daunting mandate of steering through a new constitution to complete the Himalayan nation's stalled peace process.

Koirala, the head of the centrist Nepali Congress party, was elected with support from the communist Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party, which holds the second-largest number of seats in parliament. The prime minister-elect won 405 out of the 553 votes cast.

The silver-haired 76-year-old bachelor easily won a vote in the constituent assembly, which was elected last November in only the second national polls since the end of a civil war in 2006.

"The new government will help complete the task of drafting the constitution within a year," Koirala, who was once jailed over the hijacking of a plane in India, told the assembly. "We also expect assistance from our neighbours India and China as well as other friends to complete our responsibilities."

Nepal is wedged between India and China and has been plagued by conflict, instability and intractable political divisions. It has been running under an interim constitution since the abolition of a centuries-old monarchy in 2008.

Koirala is the fourth member of his family to be become prime minister. He needed to be elected by a majority in parliament and his Nepali Congress party controls 194 seats in the 601-seat assembly. He won the support of 405 lawmakers.

The UML is made up of communists with more liberal political views than the Maoist former rebels who waged a civil war until 2006. UML leaders, reluctant to support Koirala, compromised after he agreed to a presidential election next year.

Koirala replaces Khil Raj Regmi, the Supreme Court chief justice who has headed a caretaker government since March last year. He now has the job of overseeing the preparation of a new constitution, one of the conditions of a 2006 peace deal that ended the decade-long war.

The charter has remained elusive because of differences about the political course the nascent republic should adopt. A previous attempt to write it failed after the term of a constituent assembly expired in 2012.

Leaders from across Nepal's political divide have pledged to draw up the constitution within a year, after the assembly convened for the first time since the elections last month.

As part of the weekend deal to form government, the Nepali Congress has agreed to UML's request to hold fresh elections for top posts including for prime minister and president after the constitution is delivered.

The Maoists only agreed to be part of the new assembly in December after securing a pledge from the other parties to probe their claims that the elections were rigged.

The soft-spoken Koirala is always seen wearing a black Nepali cap and sports a silver beard. He lacks experience in public administration and never held a government position when his party was in power for most of the past 23 years. But he is known as a clean politician and was jailed in Nepal and India during the country's fight for democracy from the 1950s.

Koirala spent three years in Indian jails for his suspected role in the hijacking of a Royal Nepal Airlines plane to the eastern Indian state of Bihar in 1973. The plane was carrying thousands of dollars in cash from Biratnagar in east Nepal to the capital Kathmandu.