 KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Nepal's former rebels surprised observers Tuesday by winning more than half of the directly elected seats where counting was complete in an assembly that will shape the Himalayan nation's political future.
The former insurgents, now known as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), had won 114 of the 212 directly elected seats by morning, the Election Commission said. The remaining 33 races for directly elected seats have not yet been declared.
Re-voting was held in six of the constituencies Tuesday and there were no reports of violence in those areas, the commission said. New voting was ordered mainly because of clashes between rival groups and allegations of polling irregularities.
Final results for the 601-seat Constituent Assembly, which will govern Nepal and rewrite the country's constitution, are still a few weeks off, but officials say they should have a clearer picture of what it will look like later this week.
The centrist Nepali Congress party had won 31 seats and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) had 28, the commission said.
Nepal's election last Thursday was to choose 240 members of the assembly. A further 335 were being selected through a system in which political parties are given seats in proportion to the percentage of votes they received. Another 26 seats were to be nominated by the government.  The former rebels, widely called Maoists, are almost certain to capture more than half of the 240 directly elected seats, and are doing well in the early count for the 335 proportional representation seats.
In that tally, they have garnered about 394,000 of the 1.3 million votes counted so far. About 10.5 million proportional representation ballots were cast and clear results from that part of the election are not expected until later this week or early next week.
The Maoists' strong early showing has surprised most observers, who had expected them to place third behind the traditionally powerful Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist).
The 10-year communist insurgency ended in 2006 when the Maoists agreed to join the political mainstream, but the United States still considers them a terrorist organization.
Separately, Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat was attacked at a victory rally in his village, allegedly by Maoist supporters, said Bhanu Bhakta Pokhrel, the chief administrator of Nuwakot district.
Mahat, a Nepali Congress member who won his constituency, suffered minor head injuries and was released from a hospital in Katmandu after receiving treatment, Pokhrel said.
Four policemen guarding Mahat were also injured in the assault in Nuwakot, about 50 miles north of Katmandu, he said.
Pokhrel said Mahat was involved in an argument with Maoists a day earlier. Maoist officials in Nuwakot could not immediately be reached for comment, and those reached in Katmandu had no information on the incident. |