Ram Chandra Poudel elected new President of Nepal

Kathmandu: Ram Chandra Poudel (Picture)leader of the Nepalese Congress Party, was elected as the third president of Nepal on Thursday.

Poudel defeated his rival Subash Chandra Nembang, Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) by winning 33,802 of the 52,628 electoral college votes. Nembang received 15,518 votes.

“Ram Chandra Poudel was elected president beating Subash Chandra Nembang,” Electoral Commission spokeswoman Shaligram Sharma Paudel told Xinhua.

Poudel, 78, is the nominee of eight ruling parties in the presidential election, which is attended by members of the House of Representatives, the National Assembly and the seven provincial assemblies, while Nembang was supported only by his own party.

Poudel, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, will begin his five-year term on Monday, a day after President Bidya Devi Bhandri retired.

Nepal became a republic in 2008. –Bernama