Nepal's ruling alliance fails to form government on its own

Men push bicycles through a partially deserted street amid the COVID 19 coronaviruses epidemic in Kathmandu on May 7, 2021. BIKASH KARKI AFP KATHMANDU - The ruling alliance in Nepal failed to win a majority of votes to form a new government on its own, as general election results were unveiled on Tuesday night.

The Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist Leninist led the main opposition, with 78 seats, as the largest party in the House of Representatives.

The Communist Party of Nepal Maoist Center, a ruling partner, comes third with 32 seats.

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The ruling Communist Party of Nepal Unified Socialist becomes the seventh largest party with 10 seats, while the ruling Loktantrik Samajbadi Party takes four seats, and the Rastriya Janamorcha, which formed an alliance with the four ruling parties in the Nov. 20 general elections for the House of Representatives and seven provincial assemblies, has one seat.

In total, the ruling alliance has gained 136 seats in the 275 strong House of Representatives, two seats shy of a majority needed to form a new government on its own.

Nepal has adopted a mixed electoral system in which 60 percent of the members of the lower house and provincial assemblies are elected through the fast-past voting system, while the remaining 40 percent are filled through the proportional representation system.

We completed the vote and seat allocation. We will write to the parties on Wednesday to name their lawmakers under the proportional representation, Shaligram Sharma Poudel, the spokesman for the Election Commission, told Xinhua.

As many as 12 parties have made their way to the lower house this time, with the newly-formed Rastriya Swatantra Party bagging 20 seats to become the fourth largest.