Kathmandu, 5 March

Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Tuesday failed to reach a consensus with allies on a power-sharing deal as their talks ended inconclusively, giving rise to speculation regarding the stability of his government following his dramatic move to terminate alliance with the Nepali Congress.

Prachanda, a former guerilla leader, forged a new alliance with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) – the second-biggest party – led by former premier KP Sharma Oli on Monday following which three ministers took the oath of office. After forming the new alliance on Monday the four political parties reached an 8-point agreement that would be the guiding principle for the new government’s way forward.

As per the deal, the four parties have agreed to support the Maoist Centre candidate in the election of the National Assembly chair while they will back a UML candidate for the vice-chair. Concluding all the tasks relating to the peace process including amending the transitional justice law, preparing laws needed for effective implementation of federalism and making all three tiers of government effective are the other points. Similarly, the preparation of a common minimum programme to guide the government’s performance is also included in the eight-point deal.

As the power-sharing deal among the members of the ruling alliance could not be materialised, Prime Minister ‘Prachanda’ failed to distribute ministerial portfolios to the cabinet members even 24 hours after the new alliance government was formed.

Prime Minister Prachanda has kept all 25 ministerial portfolios including those of Home, Defence, Foreign Affairs and Finance with himself as he hurriedly reshuffled the cabinet with the support of CPN-UML and appointed three ministers without portfolio.

Padam Giri from the CPN-UML, Hit Bahadur Tamang from CPN (Maoist Center) and Dol Prasad Aryal from Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) took the oath of office and secrecy on Monday. "The cabinet expansion is expected to be completed by Wednesday as discussions were underway among the alliance members till Tuesday evening," Bishnu Rijal, central member of CPN-UML, told PTI.

The talks held among Prime Minister Prachanda, UML chairman Oli, Janata Samajwadi Party chief Upendra Yadav and Rashtriya Swatantra Party president Ravi Lamichhane regarding the power-sharing deal and cabinet expansion ended inconclusively.

The four parties have a combined strength of 142 seats, which is sufficient to show a simple majority, said Rijal. “However, we are also trying to include other smaller parties including CPN-Unified Socialist (10) led by Madhav Nepal, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (4) led by Mahantha Thakur and Janamat Party (6) led by CK Raut, in the alliance to get a comfortable majority,” he said.