Nepal’s president on Sunday appointed a new prime minister, the latest in a revolving door of leaders that has left the country of 30 million in a continuous state of political uncertainty.
The new prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, held the post three times in the past and succeeds Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a former rebel against the Nepalese monarchy who lost a confidence vote on Friday.
Mr. Dahal lost control of the government when his coalition partners, including Mr. Oli’s party, turned on him and the fractious alliance collapsed. Mr. Dahal, who had been in power since late 2022, was seen as easier than Mr. Oli for India to manipulate and as frequently changing coalition partners for his personal benefit.
Mr. Oli, who leads Nepal’s largest communist party, forged a deal with the Nepali Congress, the largest party in Parliament, to form a new government with him at the helm. Under the power-sharing deal, the Nepali Congress and Mr. Oli’s party — the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) — have agreed to lead the government on a rotating basis until late 2027, when this session of Parliament concludes.
The deal makers said the new coalition would ensure stability by amending some electoral provisions, including trimming the number of seats in Parliament and merging some local governments established when Nepal’s first Constitution was instituted nine years ago.
Mr. Oli is taking charge of the government for the fourth time. First elected as prime minister in 2015, he firmly stood against a crippling economic blockade that India, Nepal’s southern neighbor, imposed that year over provisions it opposed in the new Constitution.
During his second stint as prime minister, after elections in 2017, Mr. Oli revised Nepal’s political map in a way that further soured relations with India.
Despite Mr. Oli’s previous stints in office, many doubt he will last.
“Frustrated by the opportunist tendency of Dahal, two big parties have come closer, seeking stability in politics,” said Anurag Acharya, a director of Policy Entrepreneurs Incorporated, a think tank in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. “There’s no guarantee of stability though.”
The armed rebellion once led by the departing prime minister, Mr. Dahal, succeeded in overthrowing the centuries-old Hindu monarchy and establishing a democratic republic, which Mr. Dahal and his supporters said would pave a path to economic prosperity. But as the country has churned through governments, development has not taken off.
Nepal, which lies between India and China, is reliant on remittances sent from its citizens working abroad. With few job opportunities, many young people migrate to countries in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere to feed their families back home.
The government is changing at a time when the country has been facing a string of monsoon-related disasters. In one such episode, the authorities were still searching on Sunday for scores of people missing after a landslide swept two buses into a river swollen by monsoon rains in central Nepal.
The emergency response is being hampered by Nepal’s constant political turnover. Mr. Oli is to be sworn in on Monday, a statement by the Nepali president’s office said, and Parliament must seal his appointment with a vote within 30 days.
“Leaders are just focused on breaking or making the alliance,” said Meraj Mansuri, who was trying to locate his 22-year-old brother, Raifal, after Friday’s bus disaster. “My brother has been missing for the last three days. The government is doing nothing.”
Mr. Mansuri, a mechanical engineer preparing to go to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for work, added, “I’m now depressed with this pathetic situation.”
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