Nepal's parliament has failed to elect a new Prime Minister in the 12th round of voting held this afternoon as the lone Nepali Congress candidate failed to get the required simple majority. Unified CPN (Maoist) candidate Prachanda withdrew from the electoral fray before the 8th round of voting last month, leaving Poudel as the lone candidate. Announcing the result parliament Speaker Subhash Nemwang said out of a total of 119 lawmakers who took part in the voting process, Poudel secured only 89 votes in his favour, far below the 300 votes required for his election. The Speaker announced that the next round of voting will be held on 26th October. AIR Kathmandu Correspondent reports that the number of MPs taking part in the voting has shown a continuous decreasing trend, perhaps reflecting the disinterest of the lawmakers in the unending rounds of voting without any result in the absence of a consensus among the major parties to end the political deadlock. In the current 599 members in parliament, 480 members did not take part in the voting process today. The increasing frustration and disinterest in the unending voting process to elect a new Prime Minister that entered the 12th round today is reflected in the decreasing number of MPs taking part in the voting process. From a total of 168 members of parliament who took part in the 9th round of voting on the 30th of September, the number has declined to 119 in the 12th round of voting today due to failure on the part of Nepal's main political parties to arrive at a consensus to end the political deadlock on formation of the new government. Nepal has been without an effective government since last hundred days following the resignation of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.The Maoists and CPN(UML) have urged the Nepali Congress to withdraw its candidate from the electoral fray, but the Nepali Congress has refused to do so without a tangible commitment on concluding the peace process. The three major parties have more than two weeks until the next round of voting on 26th of this month to arrive at a consensus to end the current political deadlock.