Amid cries of foul play, Nepal's National Election Commission said yesterday that the counting of votes had ended in all but one municipality and the pro-king party had won most of the mayoral posts.
Vote counting ended yesterday for the prestigious post of Kathmandu mayor, where the candidate belonging to the pro-monarch faction of the National Democratic Party was declared elected.
The counting of the votes that began late Wednesday night across Nepal was marred by protests by participating parties and independent candidates.
PHOTO: AP
Even though just about 20 percent of the over 390,000 voters cast their ballots in Kathmandu, the counting was delayed because of allegations of fraud during the vote count.
In the Nepalese capital, Raja Ram Shrestha emerged as the winner. He belongs to the Thapa faction of the National Democratic Party.
The pro-monarchy National Democratic Party split ahead of the municipal polls with the faction led by Home Minister Kamal Thapa opting to take part in the elections.
The other faction led by party president Pashupati Shumshere Rana stayed away from the polls and threw its lot with the seven parties agitating against King Gyanendra's direct rule.
According to the National Election Commission, the Thapa faction of the National Democratic Party won 14 out of the 34 mayoral contests, followed by Nepal Sadbhabana Party which won two mayoral seats.
The remaining mayoral posts in different municipalities went to independent candidates.
The vote counting in Birgunj, a town near the Nepal-India border, was still going on, the National Election Commission said.
The civic polls were held on Wednesday and despite appeals by government ministers, the voter turn out was extremely low, averaging just about 22 percent of about 1.4 million eligible voters in 36 municipalities across Nepal.
Nepal's political parties, mainly the centralist Nepali Congress and its breakaway faction the Nepali Congress Democratic and the communist United Marxist-Leninists, boycotted the polls saying that they were being held to "legitimize" King Gyanendra's seizure of power in February last year.
The Maoists also rejected the election and imposed a week-long nationwide shutdown from Sunday to obstruct the polls.
Though the Maoists said their shutdown would last for a week, they withdrew the general strike on Wednesday.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
RSS