King Gyanendra of Nepal late Sunday gave the opposition one day to settle on a candidate for prime minister after more than three weeks of negotiations failed to end anti-monarchy protests.
A palace statement said the king was giving major political parties until 5:00 pm Monday (1115 GMT) to name a candidate to succeed the king's handpicked premier Surya Bahadur Thapa, who quit on May 7.
The king had infuriated the political establishment in 2002 by firing the elected government for "incompetence." Thapa quit after weeks of opposition demonstrations outside the palace demanding a return to elected rule.
The king said he wanted a prime minister who could bring the opposition back into the government.
The palace statement said the candidate for prime minister should be a "person with a clean image who can form an all-party government, establish peace and initiate a process for elections within the year."
The king has accused elected leaders of failing to tackle a Maoist insurgency, which has claimed more than 9,500 lives since 1996. Suspected rebels carried out a rare bus bombing Sunday in the capital Kathmandu, killing one person and injuring 25 others, according to police.
Gyanendra on May 19 opened a dialogue with leaders of the five main opposition parties, which have since resumed protests after the talks deadlocked.
The opposition last year named as its consensus prime ministerial candidate Madhav Kumar Nepal, a communist who was the main opposition leader in the dissolved parliament.
But while the parties are united against the king, they have sharp differences on how he should resolve the stand-off.
Nepal's Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist wants new elections, while the Nepali Congress wants the restoration of parliament where it held a majority.
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