Nepal Maoists lose presidential vote

Lawmakers in Nepal on Monday voted in the country's first post-royal president, Ram Baran Yadav, rejecting a candidate backed by the Maoists, state television said.

Yadav, who was backed by the centrist Nepali Congress party, won 308 out of 590 votes cast in Nepal's constitutional assembly.

Die-hard republican Ramraja Prasad Singh, the candidate backed by the former rebels, won 282 votes, state television said.

Although the presidency is a largely ceremonial position, the development could delay efforts by the Maoists - who hold the most assembly seats but not a majority - to form Nepal's first republican government.

The selection of a president, who can accept the resignation of caretaker prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, is seen as a vital step to ending weeks of political deadlock after the assembly ousted unpopular King Gyanendra and ended the 240-year-old monarchy in May.

But the Maoists had threatened to refuse to form a government if their choice for the presidency was not elected, a move that would plunge the new Himalayan republic into more political turmoil.

The former rebels say that with a hostile president, they will have little chance of implementing key platform pledges like land reform and and will face constant risk of being toppled by rivals.

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