Former Maoist guerrillas on brink of historic Nepal election victory

[Marulus]

Former Maoist guerrillas on brink of historic Nepal election victory

· Rebels upstage political rivals as royal dynasty ends
· We are committed to democracy, says leader

Randeep Ramesh, South Asia correspondent
The Guardian
Monday April 14 2008

Former communist rebels in Nepal appear to be on the brink of a historic sweep in elections that will decide the political future of the Himalayan nation and end the rule of its 239-year-old royal dynasty.

The Maoists' party has won 42 seats and is leading in 58 constituencies, the election commission said in a statement on its website. The traditional politicians, who had expected to win the polls, have been reduced to bit-part players.

The country's oldest and biggest political party, the Nepali Congress, has so far won 13 seats and the Unified Marxist-Leninists, the traditional communist party, had just 14 seats in the latest count.

The vote is the culmination of a peace process that began in 2006 when street protests ended the absolute rule of King Gyanendra.

In the political deal that followed, Maoist guerrillas agreed to a end their 10-year insurgency, which claimed almost 14,000 lives, and enter a UN-sponsored disarmament programme. The guerrillas also returned to politics, shaping pre-election agreements such as the one to abolish the monarchy.

Last week's polling was largely peaceful and more than 60% of the country's 17 million voters cast a ballot. International observers, including the former US president Jimmy Carter, hailed the election as "free and fair".
Analysts say the Maoists proved more than a match for politicians, using a sly mix of propaganda and carefully calibrated street muscle to win over voters fed up with "politics as usual".

"The Maoists promised the Earth to poor, marginalised people and also ran a country-wide campaign of fear and intimidation to win the elections," said Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of Himal magazine. "I thought they would only get 12 seats but I am eating humble pie today. Everybody underestimated them."

Thanks to the complicated electoral system for the 601-seat assembly, which relies on a mix of first past the post and proportional representation, the final results of the poll will not be known for weeks. There are also caste and gender quotas designed to give the new assembly a more representative appearance.

The Maoists want a presidential system to replace the monarchy, which would mean the rebels' founder Comrade Prachanda or Pushpa Kamal Dahal would become the country's supreme leader.

On Saturday Prachanda, whose rebel nom de guerre means "the fierce one", won a seat in the capital Kathmandu. He told reporters the Maoists were "committed to the peace process and multi-party democracy and to rebuild this country."

However, experts say a decisive win for the Maoists would be potentially destabilising for the region. In their manifesto, they called for scrapping all major treaties, especially those with New Delhi, and stopping the recruitment of Nepali Gurkhas in British and Indian armies. The US still lists the Maoists as a "terrorist" group.

"We have some big issues here. The United States and India are not going to be comfortable with a Nepal dominated by Maoists," said Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of Samaya newspaper. "I can see a serious problem if the Maoists try to force their soldiers into the Nepalese army. It is what they want but nobody else does."

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[Marulus]

Monarchy ‘finished’, say Nepal’s Maoists

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Maoists said on Tuesday the abolition of the Himalayan nation’s monarchy was now just a “matter of procedure” as they held a commanding lead in the count from last week’s landmark elections.

Up for grabs are 601 seats in an assembly that will decide the impoverished country’s political future, and with the count edging towards the halfway mark, the former rebels are on track to win an absolute majority.

“The monarchy is finished. There should be no doubt about that, it’s just a matter of procedure,” senior Maoist official Prababkher, who uses one name, told AFP.

He predicted that when the new assembly convenes, it will waste little time in declaring a republic. “We may not declare a republic on the first day of the first constituent assembly meeting. Declaring a republic may take a few days, but there is no doubt it will happen,” said the Maoist official, a senior party member with a seat in the new body. The April 10 elections were a central plank of a 2006 peace deal under which the Maoists agreed to end their decade-long insurgency - which left at least 13,000 people dead - and enter mainstream politics.

Although other mainstream parties had agreed with the Maoists to sack the unpopular King Gyanendra, some politicians have been arguing that Nepal should keep some kind of monarch as a symbol of the neutrality of the country sandwiched between Asian giants China and India.

King Gyanendra ascended the throne after a palace massacre in 2001 - in which the former king and much of the rest of Nepal’s core royals were gunned down at a family get-together by a drunken and suicidal prince who was furious at not being allowed to marry the woman he loved.

The monarch’s status sank in 2005, when he fired the government and seized absolute power to fight the Maoists, only to finish up being sidelined by the peace deal.

Even parties seen as slightly sympathetic to keeping a monarch are lagging behind the ultra-republican Maoists in the vote count.

A total 208 seats have already been allocated, with the Maoists taking 114. Their nearest rival, the centrist Nepali Congress, has won 32 seats, the election commission said.

Officials said counting for the 335 seats to be awarded by proportional representation had also begun, with the results - based on roughly eight per cent of returns - so far showing a more equal spread among the main parties.

However, a clear trend from this part of the count was not expected to be known for several days, given that ballot boxes from outlying areas have yet to reach the capital.

“Proportional representation counting will be over by next week. Only then will the total number be divided to percentages and the seats given to the parties,” election official Dilliram Bastola told AFP.

The remaining 26 seats in the Constituent Assembly will be allocated by the interim government due to be formed after all the counting has been completed.

The United States - who list the Maoists as a terrorist organisation - welcomed the polls in a statement received on Tuesday.

Despite pre-election violence and some instances of election day malpractice “Nepali voters were able to cast their ballots peacefully in most districts,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in the statement.

“Over the next days and weeks, as complete results of these polls become known, the United States urges patience and non-violent observance of the democratic process.”

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