The focus of political parties has been on the prime ministership after all the results of the November 20 election are out.
The ruling coalition, which failed to win a majority in the House of Representatives (HoR) by a couple of seats, however, seems to have an easy majority in the presidential and vice-presidential elections.
Article 62 of the constitution contains the provision for the election of the president.
Clause 1 of Article 62 states that the president shall be elected by an electoral college composed of the members of the Federal Parliament and of the Province Assemblies (PA).
Accordingly, 275 HoR members and 59 National Assembly (NA) members i.e. 334 members of the Federal Parliament and 550 members elected to seven PA can vote in the presidential-vice-presidential elections. If a member of Parliament is suspended, they will not make it to the voter list.
Clause 1 adds that the voting weightage of the members of the Federal Parliament and of the PA shall vary as provided for in the Federal law. As per this arrangement, the Election Commission had determined the voting weightage of the members of the Federal Parliament to be 79 and weightage of members of the Provincial Assembly to be 48 in the first general election held in 2017.
It is likely the same weightage will be used this time as well.
Ruling coalition enjoys majority to elect prez, veep
The ruling coalition, dubbed the democratic-left alliance, includes the Nepali Congress (NC), the CPN (Maoist Center), the CPN (Unified Socialist) Party, the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP) and Rastriya Janmorcha.
These five parties need 138 lawmakers for a majority in the 265-member HoR. However, the ruling coalition is short of two seats in HoR to attain majority. Currently, the coalition has only 136 seats in the HoR.
In case if the five parties in the incumbent coalition stick together until the presidential and vice-presidential elections, then candidates belonging to the coalition are set to comfortably win these positions.
The weightage of 334 members of the Federal Parliament will be equal to 26,386 votes. Similarly, the weightage of 550 members in seven Provincial Assemblies will have 26,400 votes. Thus, the total number of votes combining both the Federal Parliament and Provincial Assembly would be 52,786.
Clause 3 of Article 62 of the constitution states that to be elected as President or Vice President, one must garner the majority of the total votes of the Electoral College. If no candidate gets a majority in the first round of election, then voting would be held in the second round between two candidates securing highest number of votes.
Clause 4 of the Article 32 provides that the candidate who gets more than 50 percent of votes in the second election will be elected as President.
Similarly, Article 69 states that the procedure for the election of the Vice President is the same as that of the election of the President.
If the position of a member of the Federal Parliament and the Provincial Assembly does not fall vacant for any reason until the election of the President and Vice President, then 26,394 votes will be needed to be elected to these two positions.
26,394 votes is more than half i.e. over 50 percent of the total vote share of 52,786.
The ruling coalition commands 13,687 votes of the Federal Parliament and14,103 votes of the Provincial Assembly i.e. 27,790 votes in total. This is 1,396 more votes than required to be elected to the post of president and vice president.
If Prabhu Sah, who independently won from Rautahat-3, and Bamdev Gautam, who became a member of the National Assembly by nomination, extend support to the ruling coalition, then the coalition will have additional 158 votes.
Among the parties in the ruling alliance, Nepali Congress has 16,221 votes (HoR 7,821 and PA 8,400), Maoist Center has 7,776 votes (HoR 3,792 and PA 3,984), the Unified Socialist has 2,673 (HoR 1,521 and PA 1,152), LSP 971 votes (HoR 395 and PA 576) and Rastriya Janamorha 266 votes (HoR 158 and PA 48).
In the general election, UML forged coordination with Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). The total number of votes in favor of these three parties joining the UML-led coalition is 19,828. This is 6,566 votes less than the total number of votes required to be elected.
Out of this, UML has 15,233 votes (HoR 7,505 and PA 7,728) and RPP has 2,450 votes (HoR 1,106 and PA 1,344).
However, besides RPP and JSP, if the UML gets support of the Janamat Party's 1,244 votes (HoR 474 and PA 768), Nagarik Unmukti's 847 votes (HoR 237 and PA 567), 962 votes of independent elected lawmakers (HoR 395 and PA 567), Nepal Workers and Peasant's Party's 223 votes (HoR 79 and PA 144) and Nepal Sanghiya Samajwadi Party's 48 votes (PA), then the party can challenge the ruling coalition.
However, if the ruling coalition manages to retain all its votes, it is almost impossible for the UML-led coalition to win.
The ruling coalition is likely to get more votes as some HoR lawmakers, including Prabhu Shah, is close to the coaliton. On the other hand, Yogendra Mandal and some lawmakers elected as independents are also close to the UML.
New Presidential building
Presidential election to be held in February next year
The process of electing a new Prime Minister will begin as soon as the HoR gets full shape.
President Bidya Devi Bhandari will appoint the parliamentary party leader of any party or a HoR member as the Prime Minister as soon as a majority is established in the House.
The election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker will be held after the HoR session commences.
In this way, the country will get a new prime minister by December-end. As for Speaker and Deputy Speaker, we may have to wait till January-end.
However, the country will have to wait till May to get a new president.
As the tenure of the President is fixed for five years, a new president cannot be elected before May.
Article 63 of the Constitution clearly states that the term of office of the President shall be 5 years from the date of election.
President Bhandari was elected on March 13, 2018. At that time, the left alliance had a majority in the Federal Parliament (House of Representatives and National Assembly) and the Provincial Assembly. Hence, Bhandari was elected for a second term with a very large margin.
Back then, Bhandari received 39,275 votes, while her closest rival NC candidate Kumari Laxmi Rai received 11,730 votes. There was a difference of 27,545 votes between the victorious Bhandari and the defeated Rai.
As many as 549 PA members (one had been under suspension) and 33 Federal Parliament members were voters. Of the voters, five HoR members and 13 PA members were absent during voting.
The election of the vice president was held on March 17, 2018. Nanda Bahadur Pun was re-elected unopposed for a second term as there were no other candidates against him.
Prior to that, Bhandari was elected President and Pun the Vice President for the first time in September/October 2015 following promulgation of the constitution by the then Constituent Assembly.
