KATHMANDU: Nepal’s president appointed Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli as prime minister for a fourth time on Sunday, after his communist party forged a coalition government with the centre-left Nepali Congress.

First elected as prime minister in 2015, he was reelected in 2018 and then reappointed briefly in 2021 in Nepal’s often turbulent parliament.

In the Himalayan republic of about 30 million people, overshadowed by giant neighbours India and China, Oli previously trod a fine balance between the rivals, cordial to both but reaching out to Beijing to decrease Nepal’s dependency on New Delhi.

“President Poudel has appointed KP Sharma Oli as the new prime minister of Nepal,” Kiran Pokharel, press adviser to President Ram Chandra Poudel, said. Oli, 72, who heads the Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), will be sworn into office on Monday, Pokharel added.

His predecessor and former coalition government ally, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, lost a vote of confidence on Friday, barely 18 months after taking office.

Dahal, a former Maoist guerrilla commander better known by his nom de guerre Prachanda (“The Fierce One”), was forced to step down after Oli’s party withdrew its support.

Oli instead forged a deal with Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress.

He has promised to yield the post to the former five-time prime minister Deuba, 78, later in the parliamentary term. Nepal’s next general elections are due in 2027.

Revolving door of PMs

The country became a federal republic in 2008 after a decade-long civil war and a peace deal that saw the Maoists brought into government and the abolishment of the monarchy.

Since then, a revolving door of ageing prime ministers and a culture of horse-trading have fuelled public perceptions that the government is out of touch with Nepal’s pressing problems.

Its economy has struggled since the coronavirus pandemic, which devastated the vital tourism industry and dried up remittances from the huge number of Nepalis working abroad. Oli’s political career stretches nearly six decades.

The veteran politician was born in 1952 in Nepal’s Terathum district, close to the eastern border with India.

Drawn into underground communist politics as a teenager, he was arrested in 1973 aged 21 for campaigning to overthrow the monarchy. He was jailed for 14 years, four of which he said were in solitary confinement, a period when he studied and wrote poetry, penning his verses on cigarette boxes when he could not access paper.

After his release in 1987, he joined the CPN-UML and rose through the party ranks, winning elections to parliament.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2024