Ram Chandra Poudel,the former deputy prime minister and speaker of the House of Representatives, was elected as Nepal’s new president in a vote held in Kathmandu on Thursday.
Poudel received 214 votes from the House of Representatives and 352 votes from the Provincial Assemblies. In a vote held in Kathmandu on Thursday, Paudel of the Nepali Congress defeated his closest rival, Subas Chandra Nembang of the CPN-UML, trailed far behind with 162 votes from the House of Representatives and 98 votes from the Provincial Assemblies.
The election saw five invalid votes out of the total count.
In the election, where different vote weights were assigned to members of the electoral college consisting of federal and provincial parliamentarians, Paudel secured 33,802 votes from 214 federal and 352 provincial lawmakers. Besides his own party, CPN-Maoist Centre, Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal, CPN-Unified Socialist, Rastriya Swatantra Party, Janamat Party, Nagarik Unmukti Party and Rastriya Janamorcha voted for him.
