Nepal's parliament has again failed to elect a new Prime Minister in the 13th round of voting held this afternoon as the lone Nepali Congress candidate Ram Chandra Poudel failed to get the required simple majority. Unified CPN(Maoist) candidate Prachanda withdrew from the electoral fray on 26th of last month, leaving Poudel as the lone candidate to contest the election.Announcing the result, parliament Speaker Subhash Nemwang said out of a total of 144 lawmakers who took part in the voting process, Poudel secured 98 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 29th of this month.AIR Kathmandu correspondent reports that out of the current 599 members in parliament, more than 450 lawmakers of United CPN(Maoist), CPN(UML), Tarai parties and over a dozen smaller parties did not take part in the voting process.AIR correspondent reports, Nepal's major political parties could not forge a consensus to elect a new Prime Minister to form a new government even after four months of resignation of the Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal in June this year. While the Maoists and CPN(UML) have urged the Nepali Congress to withdraw its candidate from the electoral contest to form a consensus government, Nepali Congress has ruled out withdrawing from the contest until an agreement is reached among the major parties on a package deal to conclude the peace process, draft the new constitution and powering sharing in the new government. Under Nepal's unique constitutional provision, voting process in parliament will continue until the lone Nepali Congress candidate withdraws from the contest or a new Prime Minister is elected by a simple majority. The failure to form a new government has already caused an economic crisis in Nepal, with the caretaker government unable to pass a full budget for the current financial year.