3 candidates for Nepalese presidency

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Candidates from the country's three main political parties have filed to run for the post of Nepal's first president, who will be chosen by Nepalese lawmakers on Saturday, the constituent assembly secretariat announced Thursday.

The country's newly elected Constituent Assembly abolished a 239-year monarchy following elections in April.

But with no one party winning a majority of the seats, the three main parties decided to field their own candidates after they failed to reach consensus on a single candidate.

The president will be chosen through a simple majority of the constituent assembly. The position is largely ceremonial, but a president will swear in whoever is picked as the country's new prime minister.

All three of the candidates are from Nepal's troubled southern region, the Madhes.

The leading contender appears to be Ram Raja Prasad Singh, 73, of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) who has the support of six different parties from the south.

Singh is also the first politician to have raised the issue of a republic to replace the monarchy because he '"did not want to live as a subject."

"We have raised him as the candidate because he has a long history of being a republican fighter," said Maoist leader Baburm Bhattarai said.

Singh says that he may have been backed by the Maoists because he helped them with bomb-making technical know-how at the beginning of their armed insurgency in 1996 and advocated on their behalf when they were underground.

Singh is not now involved in active politics, but he said that if he is chosen as president, he "would like to ensure that a special constitution" is enacted.

The constituent assembly will have to prepare a new constitution within two years.

The Maoists have 227 of 594 eligible votes in the constituent assembly and the Madhesi parties have a combined total of 91 votes.

The Nepali Congress candidate is Dr. Rambaran Yadav, 61, a medical doctor and general secretary of the party, while the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) candidate is Rampreet Paswan, 55, an "untouchable" and former vice chairman of the now-defunct upper house of parliament.

There are four vice presidential candidates, including one woman, who was fielded by the Maoists.

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