Former Maoist guerrilla leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, known by his nom de guerre Prachanda, will be sworn in on Monday to become Nepal’s prime minister for the third time, following his appointment by the president on Sunday.
Sagar Acharya, spokesman for President Bidya Devi Bhandari, told AFP that Dahal, 68, had been appointed prime minister and would be sworn in at 4:00 p.m. (1015 GMT) on Monday.
After the November 20 parliamentary elections, the ruling coalition of former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, 76, lost a majority, although his party, the Nepalese Congress, remained the largest.
Mr Dahal’s Maoist party CPN has now formed an alliance with another communist party, the CPN (UML), with which it was a single party before splitting, and six other parties, including the new National Party independent from television host Rabi Lamichhane.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal hid for years in the jungle during the civil war (1996-2006) which killed nearly 17,000 people and led to the end of the monarchy in Nepal.
After the 2006 peace accords, Dahal transformed his Maoist revolutionary movement into a political party and served briefly as prime minister between 2008 and 2009 and again from 2016 to 2017.
Rabi Lamichhane, leader of the Independent National Party (PNI), is one of more than 30 independent and minor party candidates to enter parliament after the elections.
In the legislative elections, voters punished at the ballot box an aging political elite accused of immobility in the face of a slumping economy, a tourist industry devastated by the pandemic, and rising inflation.
