Nepalese Parliament Elects First Female President
A communist politician who has long campaigned for women’s rights has become Nepal’s first female president.
Bidhya Devi Bhandari of the Communist party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) received 327 votes against her opponent’s 214 in parliament on Wednesday, the speaker, Onsari Gharti Magar, announced.
The president is Nepal’s ceremonial head, while the prime minister is the nation’s leader.
Bhandari, 54, is deputy leader of the party led by the prime minister, Khadga Prasad Oli, who was elected earlier this month and leads a coalition government. The new constitution adopted last month required Nepal to name a new president.
Bhandari is a campaigner for women’s rights in Nepal and was among the politicians who pushed to secure their rights under the new constitution. The document says one-third of the members of parliament have to be women and either the president or vice-president must be a woman.
She has been a leading political figure since her husband, Madan Bhandari, who was then leader of the party, was killed in a car accident in 1993. The circumstances surrounding the accident remain unexplained.
She also led many demonstrations against the then Nepalese monarch, King Gyanendra, that eventually ended his authoritarian rule and restored democracy.
Bhandari is Nepal’s second president since the Himalayan nation became a republic after abolishing the centuries-old monarchy.
The first president, Ram Baran Yadav, was elected in 2008 and was supposed to be in office for two years. But preparing and adopting the constitution took seven years because of differences between political parties.