President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal | |
---|---|
Style | The Right Honourable |
Residence | Shital Niwas |
Appointer | Indirect election |
Term length | Five years, renewable once in succession |
Inaugural holder | Ram Baran Yadav |
Formation | 28 May 2008 |
Deputy | Vice President of Nepal |
Salary | NPR 1,09,410 (monthly) |
Website | www.presidentofnepal.gov.np |
The President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal (Nepali: राष्ट्रपति) is the head of state of Nepal. The office was created after the country was declared a republic in May 2008. The first President of Nepal was Ram Baran Yadav. The current President of Nepal is Bidhya Devi Bhandari, elected in October 2015. She is the first female head of state of Nepal. The President is to be formally addressed as "The Right Honourable (Nepali: सम्माननीय)".
The President is elected by an electoral college comprising the Parliament of Nepal and the members of the provincial legislatures.
Whoever receives a majority of the delegates' votes is elected. If no one receives a majority in the first round, runoffs are held between the top two candidates until one receives a majority.
The presidential term is five years. A President may be elected any number of times, but not more than twice in succession.
The President's powers are almost entirely ceremonial. In most parliamentary republics, the president is vested with executive powers on paper, but is bound by convention to act on the advice of the prime minister and the government. In Nepal, however, the President is not even the nominal chief executive, as the Constitution explicitly vests executive power in the Council of Ministers and the Prime Minister.
Under the Interim Constitution adopted in January 2007, all powers of governance were removed from the King of Nepal, and the Nepalese Constituent Assembly elected in the 2008 Constituent Assembly election was to decide in its first meeting whether to continue the monarchy or to declare a republic. During the suspension of the monarchy, Girija Prasad Koirala, then Prime Minister of Nepal, acted as Head of State. On 28 May 2008, the Assembly voted to abolish the monarchy. Dr. Ram Baran Yadav won the historic election from the Constituent Assembly, and was sworn in as the nation's first president ending a 247 year old monarchy.