NEPAL:Nepal's Maoists have decided not to form a new government to protest against a decision by lawmakers to reject their candidate for the ceremonial post of the presidency.
"Now we'll not go to the government," Prachanda, the 53-year-old Maoist leader, told reporters.
The state's special assembly rejected on Monday a candidate backed by the former guerrillas for Nepal's first president and picked the nominee of a centrist party. The Maoists are the biggest group in the assembly and Mr Prachanda had been expected to be the country's next prime minister.
The vote for the presidency was the first major decision by the assembly since lawmakers decided to abolish the 239-year-old monarchy and declare a republic, part of a process that ended a civil war with Maoist insurgents.
The Maoists scored a surprise win in the elections for a constituent assembly in April and emerged as the biggest political party in the body, which will rule Nepal for at least two years and prepare a new constitution.
The impoverished nation has been in political turmoil since the elections as political parties including the Maoists squabbled.
Rising oil and food prices have also hit the people of one of the world's poorest nations.
Ram Baran Yadav, an ethnic Madheshi from the centrist Nepali Congress Party, was elected president, defeating Ramraja Prasad Singh, who had the support of the Maoists. An ethnic Madheshi from the country's lowlands, Mr Yadav's election has been touted as helping unite a country torn between its Himalayan cultures and the peoples of the plains.
- (Reuters)