Nepal: Voting begins to elect new President

Kathmandu: Voting has begun at the Nepal parliament, for election of the new President of the country.

Incumbent President Bidhya Devi Bhandari is standing in the fray for her second term challenged by Laxmi Rai from the Nepali Congress, but the mathematical calculation has shown the vote to swing for President Bhandari.

Sure to be elected, President Bhandari will be the first president of federal Nepal. She has thus also set the record as the first female president of Nepal.

According to Election Commission's spokesperson Nawaraj Dhakal, the result will be out by the evening

In Tuesday's voting, a total of a total of 330 lawmakers from the Federal Parliament and 550 lawmakers from the Provincial Council are eligible to vote. Currentl y, there are 275 lawmakers in House of Representatives and 59 in the National Assembly.

However, the vote weightage of the lawmakers from the adjacent parliaments is different. The vote weightage of lawmaker of Federal Parliament is 79, whereas it is 48 of the lawmakers from the Provincial Council. The combined vote weightage of the votes as per the calculations now is 26,000 and 70.

A total of 549 lawmakers from the Provincial Council will vote to elect new president which will have the total vote weightage of 26,352.

The calculation of the votes to be cast in favour of incumbent President Bhandari from left alliance is 33,575. The main opposition Nepali Congress has the vote weightage of 11,428 only.

The Rastriya Janata Party- Nepal and the Federal Socialist Forum- Nepal are expected to vote in favour of Bhandari assuring Bhandari's continuation over the post.

The Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) has a total of 148 lawmakers in National Assembly and House of Representative or the Federal Assembly whereas a total of 243 are in Provincial Councils. They all have the vote weightage of 23,356 with 10,319 votes from the Maoist Center.

The Nepali Congress is left behind with 11,428 vote weightage and the RJP-N and the FSF-N has vote weightage of 2,845 and 3,198 vote weightage.