78-year-old Ram Chandra Paudel was on Thursday elected as the third president of Nepal.
He was supported by current Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's party — the Communist Party of Nepal (Fourth Convention), along with eight others.
Paudel received 33,802 of the total 52,628 votes, while his main opponent, Subas Nebang of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), or CPN-UML, secured 15,518 votes, according to Nepal's Election Commission.
Meanwhile, Rastriya Prajatantra Party lawmakers and Prem Suwal of the Nepal Majdoor Kishaan Party did not participate in the presidential election.
The tenure of Nepal's current president, Bidya Devi Bhandari, will last until March 13.
Paudel, a senior politician, is known to have a cordial relationship with most of the political parties and has been a parliamentarian six times. He has been elected as deputy prime minister (1999-2002), speaker of the house (1998-2002), and has also held several ministerial posts in different governments.