Nepal all set to elect new president

Kathmandu, Mar 9 (EFE).- Nepal’s parliament votes Thursday to elect the country’s third president.

Voting was scheduled to begin at 10 am and the results expected to be announced in the evening.

The lawmakers will choose between Ram Chandra Poudel of the Nepali Congress Party and Subhash Chandra Nembang of the Communist Party of the Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist.

The new president will replace Bidhya Devi Bhandari, who was the first woman to be elected to this position in 2015 and re-elected three years later.

Nepal’s parliament comprises 884 members, including 275 members of the House of Representatives (Lower House), 59 of the National Assembly (Upper House) and 550 of seven provincial assemblies.

The winner of the elections will be Nepal’s third president since the end of the monarchy in 2008, and the second since the country’s constitution was approved in 2015.

The position of the head of state in the Himalayan country is largely symbolic, in accordance with the constitution, with most of the power in the hands of the prime minister. EFE

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