NEPAL'S LANDMARK POLLS

NEPAL gets new Communist prime minister after landmark polls.

NEPAL has cycled through 11 Prime Ministers since the civil war ended in 2006, allowing corruption to flourish and growth to stagnate.

Sher Bahadur Deuba, who resigned as prime minister earlier Thursday, spend just eight months in office.

The leader of Nepal's largest Communist party was named prime minister Thursday two months after leading his party -

To a thumping victory in landmark elections billed as a turning point for the impoverished Himalayan nation.

K/P/ Sharma Oli will head the first government elected under a new national constitution that cements Nepal transformation from Hindu monarchy to a federal republic 11 years after the end of a brutal Maoist insurgency.

The Communist leader is expected to take the oath of office later Thursday, presidential secretary  Bhesh Raj Adhikari told AFP.

An alliance of  Oli's main Communist Party and the former Maoist rebels trounced Deuba's Nepal Congress in last year's polls, the first under the country's new post-war  constitution.

The charter sets out a sweeping overhaul of the political system, devolving significant power from the centre to the seven provinces.

But the handover of power was delayed by disagreements over how the new election rules in the constitution should be implemented.

[Agencies]