KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s newly appointed prime minister took the oath of office Monday at a ceremony in Kathmandu.
The leader of Nepal’s main communist party, Khadga Prasad Oli, was appointed prime minister on Sunday after the previous coalition government fell.
This is the fourth time that he is serving as prime minister of the Himalayan country.
Two deputy prime ministers and 19 ministers appointed by him also took the oath. He is expected to further expand the cabinet with members of the coalition partners.
Oli, 72, will lead a coalition government made up of his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Nepali Congress Party, the two largest parties in Nepal.
The last government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal fell on Friday after Oli’s party, which was part of the coalition, withdrew its support for joining the new partnership.
Oli will have to seek a confidence vote in parliament within a month to remain in power. The two parties in the new alliance have more than half the members in parliament needed to prove their majority.
Oli’s biggest challenge as prime minister will be to balance Nepal’s relationship with its giant neighbors India and China, as both countries seek to exert influence over the small country. Landlocked Nepal is surrounded on three sides by India and imports all of its oil and most of its supplies from India. It also shares a border with China.
Oli was born in a village in eastern Nepal and has been involved in politics since his childhood.
He rose through the ranks of the Communist Party and was jailed for a total of 14 years for opposing the autocratic rule of Nepal’s monarchs. The royals had banned political parties until 1990, when street protests forced then-King Birendra to hold free elections, turning Nepal into a constitutional monarchy, which was formally abolished in 2008.
Oli has undergone two kidney transplants.