Maoist leader becomes Nepalese PM

The Maoist leader becomes the most powerful politician in the country

Members of Nepal's parliament have overwhelmingly elected the Maoist leader Prachanda as the country's new prime minister, officials say.

He defeated the candidate of the Congress party, Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Maoists won a surprise victory in April elections, and two other key parties supported Prachanda in the vote.

Nepal's first president, Ram Baran Yadav, was sworn in last month to the largely ceremonial role, after the monarchy was abolished in May.

'Lenin or Napoleon'

It is only two years since Prachanda emerged from more than two decades underground as a militant communist leader.

What the Maoists called their "people's war" had left 13,000 people dead, tens of thousands displaced and much of the country's infrastructure destroyed.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kathmandu says that now the former guerrilla will be the most powerful politician in the Himalayan country, with 464 lawmakers giving him their vote and only 113 rejecting him.

Earlier the Maoists' deputy leader, Baburam Bhattarai, said Prachanda would be a leader "for a new era", comparable to Lenin or Napoleon.

Our correspondent says that Prachanda's elevation had long seemed inevitable after his party scored its convincing win in April.

But months of political wrangling over power-sharing had left the country without effective government up to now.