KATHMANDU (AFP) - Nepal swore in its first post-royal government Friday with Maoist leader Prachanda as Prime Minister, ending weeks of political deadlock. The Maoists, who waged a decade-long insurgency until a 2006 peace deal, emerged as Nepal's most potent political force after convincingly winning landmark polls in April. Prachanda led the oath-taking where new ministers pledged "to remain faithful to the nation and my countrymen." The ultra-leftist Maoists, centre-left Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and another political group formed an alliance and agreed on distribution of ministerial posts. Politicians from the UML did not swear in after an 11th hour disagreement over who would be deputy prime minister, a Maoist official said. "We will extend the ministerial cabinet after the prime minister returns from his Beijing visit. Members from the UML will get sworn in then," Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara told AFP. Under the agreement clinched after a week of negotiations, the Maoists will head the Defence and Finance Ministries, with the UML party taking the Home Ministry portfolio. The Foreign Ministry will be run by Upendra Yadav, leader of the Madheshi Janaadhikar Forum, the third party in the Maoist-led alliance. Among the pressing issues facing the Maoist-led government are drafting a new constitution for the world's youngest republic, swiftly tackling crippling fuel and food shortages, and land reform. "Our first priority would be to provide adequate supplies of basic necessities from food to fuel. We also will look forward to give security to the people," Barsha Man Pun, a Maoist leader, told AFP. The Maoists in their election campaign said they would push forward with a radical reform programme in one of the world's poorest countries, which is desperate for financial aid to help it recover from the civil war that devastated the economy. The Maoist-led government will create a ministerial body to address the fate of 19,000 Maoist guerrillas confined to camps as part of the 2006 peace deal. A major challenge will be how to implement plans to integrate the rebels into the army. The government will also have to take on deteriorating law and order across the country, particularly in the southern Terai region, where violent unrest has simmered for two years. Prachanda, a nom-de-guerre meaning "the fierce one," was sworn in as prime minister last week, finalising his transformation from warlord to the country's most powerful politician. The former school teacher led a decade-long insurgency against the monarchy that claimed at least 13,000 lives before signing up for peace and vowing to renounce violence and embrace multi-party democracy.