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He changed allies this month saying he was not given a free hand (File)

Kathmandu, Nepal:

Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal won a parliamentary vote of confidence on Wednesday, a week after he formed his third coalition in just over a year to head a government which is dominated by the liberal communists.

Mr Dahal, a former Maoist guerrilla leader in the Himalayan nation sandwiched between China and India, formed a coalition cabinet including the Nepali Congress party and other smaller groups last year.

He changed allies this month saying he was not given a free hand.

The new cabinet is dominated by the liberal Nepal Communist Party (UML) and includes several other smaller groups. He had also headed a coalition with the UML briefly after the 2022 elections.

Parliament Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire said Dahal won 157 votes against the 138 required in the 275-member parliament, while 110 lawmakers voted against him.

“I was let down several times … and was forced to form a new coalition cabinet, which is just a regular political process,” Mr Dahal said in parliament on Wednesday, referring to the Nepali Congress, which is now the main opposition party.

Nepali Congress said after the break-up last week that the prime minister had deceived it by dumping it from the cabinet without any notice.

Dahal led a decade-long insurgency from 1996 which caused 17,000 deaths before he joined mainstream politics under the 2006 peace deal overseen by the United Nations.

He is serving a third time as prime minister but did not complete the full five-year term during his previous stints.

Nepal has had 13 governments since it abolished its 239-year-old monarchy in 2008 and became a republic.

Instability has hampered growth of the $40 billion economy and thousands of young Nepalis are heading abroad – mainly to the Middle East, South Korea and Malaysia – for work.

Nepal has extensive social and economic ties with India, a key donor. China is also pouring in aid and investment in infrastructure to woo Kathmandu as an ally.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)