New Nepal PM to be sworn in Tuesday

Kathmandu, May 24 (IANS) Nepal's new Prime Minister-elect veteran Communist leader Madhav Kumar Nepal will be administered oath of office Tuesday, heralding an end to a three-week-long political vacuum that had engulfed the Himalayan republic after its Maoist government fell due to a row with the army.

The new premier's party, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), told IANS that Nepal would be sworn in Tuesday by President Ram Baran Yadav.

The UML standing committee began consultations Sunday to discuss the formation of a new government and the allocation of portfolios.

It would be a tough balancing act for the new prime minister who would have to keep his own party as well as 21 others, who helped him win the prime ministerial election Saturday unopposed, happy.

After consultations with his own party leaders, the 56-year-old former deputy prime minister will also hold talks with his allies to shape the new cabinet.

Nepal's second-largest party, the Nepali Congress (NC), which left its role as the major opposition party during the Maoist government to back Madhav Nepal, said it was mulling whether to support the new government from outside or join the Communist-led cabinet.

NC chief Girija Prasad Koirala said priority would be given to consensus, cooperation and unity and the formation of an all-party steering committee to guide the new government.

Koirala has also asked the Maoists, the biggest party in the house, to join the government, an invitation that the former guerrillas rejected.

'This government is unnatural,' senior Maoist leader and lawmaker Narayan Kaji Shrestha Prakash said. 'It has been formed by imperialistic and expansionist forces. We will boycott this government.'

The Maoists have also branded Nepal, who succeeds their chief, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, as a puppet propped up India, whom they have been growingly accusing of interfering in Nepal's internal matters.

Nepal also faces a discordant note from his shifting ally, regional party Madhesi Janadhikar Forum. The Forum, once supporting the Maoists, left the former rebels to stand behind the Communists but the move has created a rift among its own leaders.

The two factions in the Forum are now battling for better representation in the new government, which will also add to the birth pangs of the new government.

Nepal is expected to announce a small cabinet that will be gradually expanded.