Apr

15

Nepal Maoists close to simple majority

Filed Under Politics | Posted By Jennifer Sullivan |

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The people desire in Nepal for a change.Former Maoist guerrillas headed for a landslide win in the historic Constituent Assembly election of Nepal.

The former rebels, who took part in a national election after 17 years, had captured 117 of the 212 seats declared so far, leaving the ruling parties far behind.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala`s Nepali Congress (NC), which had won the last general election in 1999 was defeated decisively, have managed to wrest only 32 seats.The Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) was running with 29 seats.

As the Maoists, who had spent 10 years underground waging a guerrilla war in support of the election demand, were headed for majority in the direct fights.

Direct fights would elect 240 representatives to the 601-member Constituent Assembly. However, the contest would be clinched by the proportional representation (PR) system of voting, which would choose 335 members. As counting of votes under the PR system began, the Maoists were leading there too.

Of the 54 constituencies where counting for PR votes began Monday, the once banned party had captured almost 33 percent votes with the NC following with 23 percent. While the Maoists were leading in the constituencies where they had won during the direct fights, they were also improving their performance in seats they had lost in the first past the post system.

The surprise element of the election, the first national one after nine years, was the emergence of women. Almost 10 percent of the winners were women, most of them from the Maoist party.

The Muslim community got its first woman representative as debutant ethnic party, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, saw its contestant Karima Begum win from the Terai plains.

It is clear that Maoists would lead the next government.Congratulations started pouring in from the diplomatic community with foreign ambassadors meeting Maoist chief Prachanda. The ambassadors of India, Japan and Norway had congratulated him.

US government still considers Nepal`s Maoist party a terrorist organisation that explain absence of the US ambassador to Nepal, Nancy Powell. Powell on Tuesday met Koirala to discuss the developments after urgings by former US president Jimmy Carter that Washington should `do business` with them.



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