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KATHMANDU - NEPAL'S Maoists said on Tuesday they would not form the Himalayan nation's first post-royal government after the defeat of their candidate for president, setting off a new political crisis here.
The former rebels' decision, seen as a blow to Nepal's peace process, came one day after rival parties in a constitutional assembly ganged up against the Maoists to elect a president allied to the main centrist party.
'The election for the president has taken place and the candidate supported by our party has lost,' Maoist party chief Prachanda told reporters on Tuesday.
'We have no moral basis for the formation of government. Our claim for more than three months to form and lead the government is over. Our party gladly accepts the place of opposition in Nepali politics.'
Elections to the assembly in April gave the Maoists the largest single bloc of seats, but not an outright majority.
The Maoists had insisted their choice of president should be elected and that they form a new government.
But a vote on Monday saw Mr Ram Baran Yadav from the Nepali Congress party - the Maoists' main rival - named as the country's first president.
The presidency is a largely ceremonial position, but the Maoists have argued that Yadav's victory would give them little room to manoeuvre should they form a government, and little chance of implementing key platform pledges like radical land reform.
Mr Prachanda said the former rebels still remained invested in the country's two-year-old peace process, which ended a decade-long rebel uprising that killed at least 13,000 people.
'Our commitment to the peace process is still intact. We won't flutter,' he said, but added that his party did have 'deep concerns'.
It was also not immediately clear if the other parties could cobble together their own alliance and pull Nepal out of the political vacuum that followed the abolition of the 240-year-old monarchy on May 28.
In a statement congratulating Mr Yadav, UN chief Ban Ki Moon urged all parties to 'cooperate in forming a new government which will carry forward Nepal's peace process'.
Mr Arjun Narsingh Khatri Chhetri, spokesman for the Nepali Congress party, said the presidential vote had been a wake-up call for the Maoists.
'They wanted to divide the political parties and rule alone. Now they have to respect and be committed to democratic norms, values and processes,' Mr Chhetri said. 'They can't have everything their way.' -- AFP
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