Ram Chandra Poudel, leader of the Nepali Congress party, was elected as the third president of Nepal on Thursday.
Poudel defeated his rival Subash Chandra Nembang, vice chair of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), by garnering 33,802 of the 52,628 electoral votes. Nembang got 15,518 votes.
“Ram Chandra Poudel has been elected as the president beating Subash Chandra Nembang,” Shaligram Sharma Paudel, spokesperson for the Election Commission, told Xinhua.
Poudel, 78, is the candidate of eight ruling parties in the presidential election involving members of the House of Representatives, the National Assembly and the seven provincial assemblies, while Nembang was endorsed only by his own party.
Poudel, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, will start his five-year term on Monday, one day after President Bidya Devi Bhandri retires.
Nepal became a republic in 2008.