President Bidhya Devi Bhandari dissolved the parliament on May 21 at midnight and scheduled fresh polls on November 12 and 19.
The decision was made on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.
The dissolution of the parliament happened after Prime Minister Oli’s claim to form the government had to be dropped by the President on legal advice. Oli was recently re-appointed as Prime Minister after the opposition parties, led by Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, was unable to put together a coalition government.
According to the Office of the President, the date of the next election has been announced by dissolving the House of Representatives as per Article 76 (7).
Article 76 (7) states that “If the Prime Minister appointed in accordance to sub-article (5) fails to obtain a vote of confidence or is unable to be appointed Prime Minister, the President shall, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, dissolve the House of Representatives and fix the date for the next House of Representatives election within six months.”
Before dissolving the parliament, President Bhandari had rejected the claim made by KP Sharma Oli and Sher Bahadur Deuba for the post of prime minister.
Oli and Deuba claimed for the post after the president called for a basis of the vote of confidence in parliament to appoint a prime minister in accordance with Article 76 (5) of the constitution.
Deuba had demanded the appointment of the prime minister with the signatures of 61 parliamentarians from Congress, 49 from the UCPN (Maoist), 26 from the UML Madhav Nepal group, 12 from the People’s Socialist Party, Upendra Yadav group and one from the Rashtriya Janamorcha. On the other hand, Oli claimed that 121 UML and 32 from the People’s Socialist Party.
However, it is shared that the president did not accept both of the claims, because the supporters’ signators duplicated the claims and some of the parliamentarians supported the claim against their party decision. The respective parties submitted their concern to the president regarding their parliamentarians unauthorized signators.
On the recommendation of Prime Minister Oli, President Bhandari had earlier dissolved the House of Representatives on December 20 and announced mid-term elections in April.
The Supreme Court had ruled to overturn the government’s decision to dissolve the House of Representatives on February 23.
The Constitutional Bench headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Junga Bahadur Rana unanimously decided to overturn the government’s decision to dissolve the House of Representatives.