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Nepal celebrates peaceful vote as results trickle in

by admin on 11/04/08 at 5:25 am

Nepal Friday celebrated a surprisingly peaceful vote on its political future as results began trickling in from the landmark polls contested by former Maoist rebels and mainstream parties. The vote on Thursday was a key part of the impoverished Himalayan nation’s peace deal with the Maoists, and will lead to the formation of an assembly that will rewrite the constitution and is likely to abolish an unpopular monarchy.

Despite fears that polling day would witness an explosion of violence, only sporadic incidents took place in a country still recovering from a decade of civil war which left 13,000 dead.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon congratulated Nepal on the vote, which he said “took place in a generally orderly and peaceful atmosphere.”

“Nepal stuns world, itself,” read a banner headline in the English-language daily The Kathmandu Post, trumpeting the smooth running of the high-stakes polls.

“The Nepali people have once more proved doomsayers wrong,” crowed the Nepali Times.

In spite of clashes, shootings and bombings in the weeks leading up to the polls, just 33 of around 21,000 polling booths had to be shut, the Election Commission said.

Security had been tight across the country, and only isolated flare-ups, including three deaths in the ethnically tense south, were reported — no worse than on any other day.

If the count goes smoothly, the results for more than a third of the seats, those allocated by the constituency system, were expected in just over a week, the Election Commission said.

“Results have already started trickling in. There are some areas where the ballot boxes are still coming and it may take some time due to remote geographical conditions,” spokesman Laxman Bhattarai told AFP.

The rest of the seats, allocated by proportional representation, will take longer to decide as the count will be more complex. The complete results are not expected for several weeks.

Kathmandu’s City Hall constituency — the only one to use electronic voting machines — was the first to declare results, with the seat going to the centrist Nepali Congress led by interim Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala.

When the full results emerge over the coming weeks, Nepal will have a new 601-seat assembly that will tear up the country’s past status as a Hindu monarchy and write a new constitution from scratch.

But strains could start to show after the votes have been counted, with the first challenge being to get the major parties to accept the results, analysts have said.

The Maoists, whose 2006 peace deal ended the bloody civil war and the king’s attempt to seize absolute power, hold 84 seats in the 330-seat caretaker assembly and control five ministries without ever fighting an election.

Political observers have expressed concern the former guerrillas may take to the streets if they make a poor showing.

“The very first challenge will be to get to the end of the counting process and have the major parties accept the results,” said Rhoderick Chalmers, Nepal’s country director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

King Gyanendra, who ascended the throne in 2001 after the much-loved former monarch and most of his family were massacred by a drunk-and-drugged crown prince, will also be closely watched.

While widely unpopular for trying to seize absolute power, he can still count on support from sections of the army and from fundamentalists who see him as an incarnation of a Hindu god.