Nepal has rejected as "groundless" widespread international criticism of this week's local elections, which were marred by violence and low voter turnout, state-run media reported yesterday.
"The claims are groundless as it is clearly evident that the people exercised their franchise in the most adverse situation," said Tulsi Giri, vice-chairman of the royal council of ministers appointed by King Gyanendra when he seized power a year ago.
Giri's comments were reported in the state-run newspaper Rising Nepal, which is regarded as a government mouthpiece.
Gyanendra, who said he grabbed absolute power to quell an increasingly deadly Maoist revolt, has insisted that the elections would be a step toward restoring democracy by April next year.
But the elections on Wednesday, won by pro-king candidates and boycotted by mainstream opposition parties, have been condemned by a host of nations including the US, the UK, India and Japan.
Just 21 percent of the electorate turned out to vote in the polls.
On top of the opposition boycott, Maoist rebels, fighting since 1996 to overthrow the monarchy, had threatened to "take action" against participants and a rebel-called strike shut down much of Nepal in the run-up to the vote.
The US slammed the vote as a "hollow attempt to legitimize power" by Gyanendra.
Neighboring India also criticized the elections, saying they lacked credibility and would not help restore democracy in Nepal.
Meanwhile, Giri said the arrest and detention of hundreds of political activists who had called for a vote boycott ahead of the polls was necessary because those detained had disrupted the electoral process.
"The government arrested them after warnings," Giri explained.
The international human rights group Amnesty International said on Friday that around 1,500 people had been arrested for "either organizing or participating in political demonstrations."
Meanwhile, security has been tightened in the southwestern part of the country after Communist rebels ambushed an army patrol on a key highway in the region, killing at least nine people and leaving 28 security forces missing, officials said yesterday.
Hundreds of government troops have been transported to a stretch of the East-West highway near Sunwal, about 250km southwest of Kathmandu, following the latest rebel assault, said Ram Kumar Khanal, the police chief in the area.
Khanal said two policemen were killed in clashes that began with Thursday's ambush and lasted through the next day. The Royal Nepalese Army said in a statement two army soldiers were also killed in the attack.
News reports yesterday said 16 soldiers and police were killed.
Khanal said 22 soldiers and six policemen were missing and that land mines were hampering efforts to search for them.
The rebels said they lost at least four fighters in the battle. One civilian was also killed
The rebels launched repeated attacks during the campaign and threatened to kill anyone who took part in the elections.
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