KATHMANDU: President Bidya Devi Bhandari issued an order late Friday night dissolving House of Representatives (HoR). She has also announced general election in two phases, November 12 and 19.
Constitutional experts say the step is unconstitutional, especially because she acted on recommendation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli who recently lost a parliamentary vote of confidence.
Earlier, the cabinet meeting held at Thursday midnight had decided to recommend to the President to dissolve the House of Representatives as per Article 76 (7) of the Constitution and declare mid-term.
Before dissolving the parliament, President Bhandari had rejected the claim made by Oli and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba for the appointment of the Prime Minister as per Article 76(5).
Oli and Deuba made the claim after the President called for a vote of confidence in parliament to appoint a prime minister in accordance with Article 76 (5) of the constitution.
Deuba had demanded for the appointment of the prime minister with the signatures of 61 MPs from his party Nepali Congress, 49 from the UCPN (Maoist Centre), 26 from the Madhav Nepal faction of CPN (UML), 12 from Upendra Yadav faction of JSP and one from the Rastriya Janamorcha.
Oli, on the other hand, claimed that 121 CPN (UML) and 32 JSP MPs would support him.
However, the President said that the lawmakers, who were said to be supporters of both parties, had duplicated each other, supported each other against the party’s decision and had written to the party concerned not to recognize them.
Supreme Court is likely to be approached to quash the dissolution order.
The opposition parties, including Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Centre) have voiced anger against the dissolution of the House. Their leaders have raised concern through series of twits and facebook posts over the act of President. They have said the issue will be challenged on political level and on court.
