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Maoists take early lead in Nepal

Former rebels have won control in eight out of 14 constituencies where vote-counting has been completed in an election for Nepal’s Constituent Assembly, election officials said yesterday.
Early results from Thursday’s vote indicated the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) — who ended their 10-year insurgency in 2006 — could also be set to win control in 58 other constituencies where counting was still going on, the Election Commission said.
Of the 14 constituencies counted by midday yesterday, the Maoists had eight seats, while the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) each secured three, the commission said.
Three of the Maoists who won seats were ministers in the coalition government: Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Paspha Bhusal, Dev Gurung. Mahara and Gurung were key negotiators in the peace process that ended the communist uprising and brought the former guerrillas into the realm of mainstream politics two years ago.
A complete count of votes in all 240 constituencies was expected to take several weeks.
The Maoists — who are still considered a terrorist organization by the US — were already predicting victory in the election for the 601-seat assembly that will be responsible for writing Nepal’s new constitution.
“We will get a clear majority in the final results,” said Hisila Yami, a senior member of the Maoist party and a minister in the coalition government.
“People have chosen us to lead the country,” she said. “This is a reflection of the people’s desire for a republic that our party has always stood for.”
The election has been touted as the cornerstone of the 2006 peace deal struck between the government and the former rebels. The agreement followed months of unrest that forced Nepal’s king to cede absolute power.
Scattered shootings and clashes that killed two people on election day and eight others in the days leading up to the poll did not deter millions of Nepalis from casting ballots in Thursday’s vote in the Himalayan country’s first election in nine years.
None of the 54 parties vying for seats in the assembly is expected to win a landslide, and with 20,000 voting stations spread across the country — some a seven-day walk from the nearest paved road — officials say it could be several weeks before a complete tally is ready.
The distribution of seats in the new assembly also adds to the complexity of counting the results. There were direct elections for 240 of the assembly’s seats, and a nationwide proportional representation system with quotas for women and myriad ethnic and caste groups is being used to pick 335 of the seats. The remaining 26 seats are reserved for major politicians who don’t win seats and other notables.
The Election Commission said there would be re-polling in at least 60 locations because of voting irregularities, and that number could rise as election complaints are investigated. Several candidates have claimed their supporters were barred from voting by rival groups and have complained of election fraud.

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