KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Maoist leader, who swapped arms for politics when his “people’s war” ended in 2006, threw the country’s elections into doubt yesterday by claiming the poll was rigged following big losses for his party.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, demanded a halt to vote-counting after losing his own seat in Tuesday’s elections aimed at installing a constituent assembly and ending years of political instability. “We urge the election commission to stop the counting,” Prachanda told a press conference. “We accept (the) people’s verdict but cannot accept conspiracy and poll-rigging.”
As protesters gathered outside the party’s headquarters chanting “We are ready to fight again!”, the former guerilla said ballot boxes were tampered with while being transported from polling stations to counting centres.
Prachanda finished a distant third in his Kathmandu constituency, well behind the winning Nepali Congress party candidate, Rajan K C, according to the election commission. Tentative results showed the Maoists leading in just 11 percent of the 187 constituencies where vote-counting has been completed or is well under way.
Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety said counting would continue despite Prachanda’s demand. Former US president Carter, who is in Kathmandu to monitor the polls, told a press conference Thursday that he was “very disappointed” over the Maoist rejection of the electoral process. Preliminary results are likely to emerge today, with full results expected by the end of the month.
More than 100 parties, including three major ones — the Unified Marxist-Leninist, the Nepali Congress and the Maoists — fielded candidates for the assembly. In addition to the 240 directly-elected seats, an additional 335 seats will be awarded via a proportional representation system and a further 26 will be chosen by a council of ministers.
AFP
