According to latest reports, a total of 590 votes were cast during today's election while four Constituent Assembly members didn’t exercise their voting rights by not participating in the voting ceremony. There are altogether 594 voters in the CA.
During the presidential election conducted last Saturday, 578 votes were cast, but as no presidential candidate emerged a clear winner from it, the re-election was done today.
The Parliamentary Secretariat has said that the final results of the presidential re-election would be published after vote-counting is over by 4 pm in the afternoon.
Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, general secretary of Nepali Congress (NC), who has been supported by Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), appears in a stronger position compared with his rival, Maoist-nominee Ram Raja Prasad Singh.
As per the latest alliance mark-sheet by Kantipur daily, Dr.Yadav has been promised of support from CPN-ML (9 members), CPN-United (5), RPP (8), RJP (3), Rastriya Jana Morcha (4), Jana Morcha (1), NSP-Anandidevi (1), Chure Bhawar (1), Loktantrik Samajbadi Dal (1) and Independent (2). These support are in addition to NC (113), UML (108) and MJF (52) members. This puts the total number of pledged support to 308 – which is more than enough for Dr. Yadav to be elected.
On Monday morning, the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) also decided to throw its weight of 5 members in favour of Dr. Yadav. This takes the number of his supporters to 313.
A candidate needs to bag at least 298 to win the election with comfortable majority.
In the first phase of the presidential election on Saturday, Dr. Yadav had garnered 283 votes against 270 by Singh. Since neither could bag comfortable majority, the run-off polls are being held on Monday. nepalnews.com ag July 21 08
