Yeah, so Michael Cullen was on the list and became deputy prime minister, and with a bunch of Labour Maori MPs, they lost to Maori Party candidates and yet came back through the Labour list, it's similar to that?
Its hard to claim some sort of personal mandate or authority when no one wants you as their electorate MP.

2009/7/9 Alastair Reith <alastair.reith@...>

Madhav Nepal ran in two electorates, and was beaten resoundingly in both by Maoist candidates. He was appointed to the Constituent Assembly via the party list, and the CPN UML chose him to be the candidate they put forward for PM. In theory the same could happen in New Zealand.

2009/7/9 joel cosgrove <joel.cosgrove@...>

//"If an unelected person becomes the prime minister, what's the use of elections," he said. "What kind of message does this send abroad?"//

How did this happen? How is this person legally the prime minister?

2009/7/8 Alastair Reith <alastair.reith@...>

Nepal's Maoists threaten street movement

1 day ago

KATHMANDU (AFP) — The leader of Nepal's Maoists said Monday his party would take to the streets if its demands were not met, as he addressed parliament for the first time since stepping down as prime minister.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal -- who goes by the name Prachanda, or the fierce one -- resigned as prime minister on May 4 after just eight months in the job when the president overruled his decision to sack the head of the army.

A new coalition government has since been formed, but the Maoists -- the biggest single party in the house -- have blocked parliamentary proceedings for the past two months in protest against the president's move.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal -- who goes by the name Prachanda, or the fierce one -- resigned as prime minister on May 4

Map

On Monday they allowed the house to reopen after the new prime minister pledged to resolve the row over the army chief and the role of the president within the next month.

"If our demands are not met within a month, there will be a movement in the parliament and throughout the country," said Dahal in a fiery hour-long address.

Dahal also criticised his successor, moderate leftist Madhav Mumar Nepal, who is not an elected member of the parliament.

"If an unelected person becomes the prime minister, what's the use of elections," he said. "What kind of message does this send abroad?"

Prime Minister Nepal had been under pressure to reach agreement with the Maoists because his government must present its new budget to parliament before the current fiscal year ends on July 15.

The Maoists, who fought a decade-long civil war with Nepal's army before a 2006 peace deal, won nearly 40 percent of the seats in last year's elections.

During their time in government they were at loggerheads with army chief General Rookmangud Katawal over the integration of Maoist fighters into the military -- a key tenet of the peace agreement.

Nepal, who addressed parliament immediately after Dahal, said the warring parties should "forget past bitterness and move ahead."

"We will forge an agreement and come to a consensus between the political parties in one month's time regarding the issues of president and the army chief," he said.

"We will not let the army extend or impose its supremacy upon us."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iGpSYePi5SDCLq3T0oUjijr1_UcA

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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Third Engineer Alastair Reith, Dunedin.

"They are pressing forward, here, there and everywhere, in all the zones that girdle the globe. Everywhere these awakening workers, these class-conscious proletarians, these hardy sons and daughters of honest toil are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation, everywhere their hearts are attuned to the most sacred cause that ever challenged men and women to action in all the history of the world. Everywhere they are moving toward democracy and the dawn; marching toward the sunrise, their faces all aglow with the light of the coming day. These are the Socialists, the most zealous and enthusiastic crusaders the world has ever known. They are making history that will light up the horizon of coming generations, for their mission is the emancipation of the human race. They have been reviled; they have been ridiculed, persecuted, imprisoned and have suffered death, but they have been sufficient to themselves and their cause, and their final triumph is but a question of time."

- Eugene V Debs

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Third Engineer Alastair Reith, Dunedin.

"They are pressing forward, here, there and everywhere, in all the zones that girdle the globe. Everywhere these awakening workers, these class-conscious proletarians, these hardy sons and daughters of honest toil are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation, everywhere their hearts are attuned to the most sacred cause that ever challenged men and women to action in all the history of the world. Everywhere they are moving toward democracy and the dawn; marching toward the sunrise, their faces all aglow with the light of the coming day. These are the Socialists, the most zealous and enthusiastic crusaders the world has ever known. They are making history that will light up the horizon of coming generations, for their mission is the emancipation of the human race. They have been reviled; they have been ridiculed, persecuted, imprisoned and have suffered death, but they have been sufficient to themselves and their cause, and their final triumph is but a question of time."

- Eugene V Debs