Deuba becomes PM as Nepal struggles with Covid
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s president appointed veteran liberal Sher Bahadur Deuba as prime minister on Tuesday, the president’s office said, a day after the Supreme Court reinstated the parliament that was dissolved in May.
The new leader’s immediate task is to procure Covid-19 vaccines and control the spread of the coronavirus that has infected more than 658,000 people and killed nearly 10,000 of them — figures experts say fail to reflect the true toll.
“The biggest challenge of the new leader is to free every citizen from suffering from Covid-19 by inoculating them’’, said Prakash Sharan Mahat, a senior leader of Deuba’s party.
More than 1.3 million people have had a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine and are awaiting a second shot as the government scrambles to protect its people.
Deuba, 75, head of the centrist Nepali Congress party, will head a coalition with former Maoist rebels and a party representing a minority community dominant on Nepal’s southern plains, the latest development in a monthslong political crisis that left the country without a parliament.
Deuba, who has served as prime minister four times in the past, must win a vote of confidence in parliament in the next month.
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered Deuba be appointed in place of KP Sharma Oli, who had failed to win a vote of confidence and dissolved parliament twice in recent
months, which the court ruled was unconstitutional.
Deuba, a staunch democrat, will aim to end corruption and create conditions for free and fair elections due next year following
the latest bout of political instability, Mahat said.