AFTER centuries of absolute monarchy followed by decades of chaos, Nepal is taking to democracy in a big way. Since May its people have voted into office 753 newly created local councils, seven new provincial assemblies and a 275-member national parliament. Counting is not quite done for those last two votes, run simultaneously over the past three weeks, but the winner is clear. A coalition of two ostensibly communist parties, the Unified Marxist Leninists (UML) and the Maoist Centre, looks set to control not just the national government but six of seven provinces.
The alliance was tapped to win after the Maoists abruptly ditched their erstwhile coalition partner in the outgoing government, the Nepali Congress, to join the UML. But the scale of the avalanche comes as a shock to the centrist and liberal Congress, which over the turbulent past quarter-century has served as the default party of government. The leftists...Continue reading
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