Oli, chief of the second largest party in the parliament, the Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), returns as prime minister for the fourth time.

“I, KP Sharma Oli, in the name of the country and people, pledge that I will be loyal to the constitution … and fulfil my duty as the prime minister,” Oli said as President Ram Chandra Poudel administered the oath of office.

First elected as prime minister in 2015, he was re-elected in 2018 with a rare majority government, and then reappointed briefly in 2021 in Nepal’s often turbulent parliament.

His predecessor and former coalition government ally, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, lost a vote of confidence on Friday, barely 18 months after taking office.

Dahal, a former Maoist guerrilla commander better known by his nom de guerre Prachanda (“The Fierce One”), was forced to step down after Oli’s party withdrew its support.

Oli instead forged a deal with Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress.

He has promised to yield the post to the former five-time prime minister Deuba, 78, later in the parliamentary term.

The country became a federal republic in 2008 after a decade-long civil war and a peace deal that saw the Maoists brought into government and the abolishment of the monarchy.

Since then, a revolving door of ageing prime ministers and a culture of horse-trading have fuelled public perceptions that the government is out of touch with Nepal’s pressing problems.