NEPAL:NEPAL IS in the throes of a massive political upheaval, with the Maoist party (Communist Party-Maoist) taking an unexpected and dramatic lead as counting continues in the first nationwide elections since 1999.
The former underground party, which waged a jungle war for 10 years before signing up to a peace process in 2006, has stunned pundits by winning 105 seats so far out of 240 seats in the first-past-the-post part of the complicated two-element electoral system.
If the Maoists do as well in the proportional representation (PR) contest for a further 335 seats, they will emerge as the single largest party and possibly command a majority in the 601-seat assembly charged with rewriting Nepal's constitution.
Twenty-six seats will also be chosen by a council of state led by the prime minister from among a list of distinguished citizens.
Counting in the PR race has not yet started, and results are not expected for at least 10 days.
Speaking to a local newspaper yesterday, Maoist second-in-command BR Bhattarai said the party "targeted the underprivileged and marginalised sections of society, including women".
The two largest and traditional mainstream parties - the National Congress and United Marxist Leninist Party (UML) - have been decimated and are trailing far behind with 30 and 24 seats respectively in the first-past-the-post race.
Sixty per cent of the 17.6 million registered voters turned out for the twice-postponed elections on a largely peaceful day last Thursday.
The elections were, however, marred by violence that saw up to 20 killed and hundreds injured in the run-up to election day.
To date, the election commission has ordered repolling at 98 out of 20,000 polling stations due to irregularities.
In preliminary findings, international monitors from Asia, the EU and the US-based Carter Centre have found the elections to be largely credible.
UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal tendered his resignation following the defeat of his party and the loss of his own seat to a relatively unknown Maoist candidate in Kathmandu.
The scale of the swing to the Maoists has stunned domestic and international observers, who expected them to win 10-20 per cent of the seats. It has even surprised the Maoist leadership, who have quickly moved to reassure neighbours India and China that they will seek to build consensus among political parties.
The first meeting of the new assembly will rubber-stamp an agreement to declare Nepal a federal democratic republic, thereby ending the 240-year monarchy.