KATHMANDU: Nepal`s parliament has delayed a vote to choose the country`s next prime minister, an official said Wednesday, further prolonging a leadership vacuum in the troubled Himalayan nation.

Parliament was scheduled to hold the vote on Wednesday afternoon, more than six weeks after former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal stood down under pressure from the opposition Maoist party.

But party leaders said they wanted time to mourn a Maoist lawmaker who died on Saturday.

"The election slated for this afternoon has been postponed because a member of the parliament died last week," parliament secretariat official Lava Prasad Gautam told AFP.

Nepal`s prime minister agreed in May to step down to pave the way for a new power-sharing government in a deal to secure the support of the opposition Maoist party for an extension of parliament`s term.

But since then, political leaders have been unable to agree on the shape of the new administration.

The Maoists, who fought a decade-long civil war against the state before transforming themselves into a political party ahead of 2008 elections, hold the largest number of seats in parliament, but not enough to govern alone.
Their leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal is vying with Ram Chandra Poudel, chairman of the second-largest party in parliament, the centrist Nepali Congress, to be the next prime minister.

But neither candidate has so far been able to secure the backing of rival parties that they would need to form a new government.

The resulting stalemate has hampered progress in the long-running peace process that began when the war ended in 2006 and prevented the passage of the annual budget, delaying much-needed government spending.

No new date for the vote has yet been fixed.

BDST: 13:09 HRS, August 18, 2010