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Nepal endorses peace, but
tough challenges seen ahead
Kathmandu— Crucial polls in Nepal that had been plagued by
pre-election violence have passed off smoothly, but analysts warn it
is too early to declare peace has truly broken out in the Himalayan
nation. The election Thursday saw a strong turnout, a sign that
voters wanted to give their resounding backing to efforts to turn
the page on a decade-long Maoist revolt.
It was also a major achievement for the Maoists: in the run-up to
the polls they were under fire for bullying voters, but polling day
passed off surprisingly peacefully with only sporadic violence
reported.
“I congratulate the people of Nepal, who have demonstrated their
commitment to democracy by turning out in large numbers to vote,”
said Ian Martin, the head of the United Nations’ peace mission in
Nepal.“Election day was conducted by and large in a peaceful and
orderly manner,” he said. In all three people died in isolated
incidents on polling day, far lower than feared.
When the full results emerge over the coming weeks, Nepal will have
a new 601-seat assembly that will tear up the country’s past status
as a Hindu monarchy and rewrite a new constitution from scratch.But
analysts say this process—from the counting of ballots to the
eventual expected sacking of unpopular King Gyanendra—will be no
easy ride for a country that has a history of political instability.
“Holding the constituent assembly election was a big challenge, but
the ones ahead are bigger,” cautioned Sudheer Sharma, editor of the
weekly news magazine Nepal.The key, he said, was for Nepal’s two
biggest mainstream parties and the Maoists—the once bitter foes who
signed a peace pact in 2006—to see through their often awkward
marriage of convenience.
“All the parties have their own road maps. If the harmony between
the big three parties breaks, it will be a huge hurdle,” Sharma
said, referring to the Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal
(Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist).
Strains could start to show shortly after the votes have been
counted, said Rhoderick Chalmers, Nepal’s country director for the
Brussels-based International Crisis Group.“The very first challenge
will be to get to the end of the counting process and have the major
parties accept the results. —AFP
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