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UN appeals for peace ahead of landmark Nepal poll

Supporters of the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) wave a party banner during an election motorcycle rally in Kathmandu yesterday. The UN appealed to Nepal`s former rebel Maoists and other parties to halt violence to ensure fair voting on Thursday. PHOTO AFP

The UN appealed yesterday to Nepal’s former rebel Maoists and other parties to halt violence to ensure fair voting in landmark polls this week on the Himalayan nation’s future.

The appeal came as parties wound up campaigning for Thursday’s elections to create an assembly that is slated to rewrite the constitution and is also expected to abolish the monarchy.

“Intimidation of voters must stop” and the election must be “violence-free,” Kieran Dwyer, spokesman of the UN peace mission to Nepal, said in Kathmandu.

The run-up to the elections in the country of 27 million people has been marred by violence by all political parties.

But Dwyer’s statement came on the heels of a UN report which singled out the Maoists, who are taking part in elections for the first time after fighting a decade-long civil war, as the worst perpetrators of pre-poll violence.

The Maoists have been threatening voters by saying they can find out how they voted, vowing to punish those who cast ballots against them, according to local media reports.

“Voters must have confidence in the secrecy of the ballot so that they can vote according to their conscience,” Dwyer said.

The elections are a key plank of a peace deal reached between the ultra-leftists and mainstream parties in late 2006 that ended the civil war aimed at toppling the monarchy that claimed at least 13,000 lives.

The peace deal came after King Gyanendra was forced to end a period of direct rule in the face of mass protests by the Maoists and the parties.

Politicians went door-to-door or held last-minute rallies yesterday on the last day of campaigning ahead of the polls.

Nepali Congress, the largest political party in the country, said it was organizing political rallies and meetings in all the constituencies. The party has pledged to push for a republic and safeguard the country’s democracy.

“We have public rallies in all the districts on the last day of campaigning to try to persuade the voters to choose us,” senior party member Shobhakar Parajuli said.

The Maoists were sending small groups of campaigners from house to house pledging to be a new breed of politician that can break free of the squabbles of past governments.
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