Nepal's Maoists win lead role in assembly

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Nepal's former communist rebels were declared the largest party in a new governing assembly yesterday. While the Maoists will not have a majority, they are expected to usher in sweeping changes for the poor Himalayan nation.

The first priority will be to get rid of the royal dynasty that has ruled Nepal for 239 years.

"The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly will end the monarchy and establish a republic - there will be no compromise," said the Maoists' leader, Prachanda.

While there is still support for the monarchy, few Nepalis will mourn the exit of King Gyanendra, who seized absolute power in 2005, only to be forced into restoring democracy a year later by widespread protests.

Prachanda also said he supports a capitalist system.

The Maoists put aside their arms and signed a peace deal giving them a role in an interim administration. They toned down their rhetoric and found strong support from voters upset by the country's poverty and disenchanted with the often squabbling and corrupt political elite.

Fear also may have helped. The movement, which murdered critics during its insurgency and forced young men and women to be guerrillas, was accused of trying to intimidate voters and rivals during the campaign, but international observers said the election was largely fair.

Election Commission official Yam Bahadur Dura said preliminary results from the April 10 election gave the Maoists 217 seats in the 601-seat assembly. That was more than double the number mustered by either of Nepal's longtime parties, the Nepali Congress, with 107, and the United Marxist-Leninists, with 101. Other seats were allocated to the parties based on their percentage of the total vote.

There is much uncertainty over the makeup of the new administration that will be formed by the assembly, which will be responsible for rewriting the constitution while it governs. The Maoists have been in talks in recent days with the other major parties and are pushing for creation of a president, a job they want for Prachanda, whose name means "the fierce one" in Nepali.

"It is my desire to be the president," Prachanda said after meeting with U.N. officials and foreign ambassadors in Kathmandu. "But since there is no provision in the present constitution, we will have to reach some agreement with the other political parties."

It is unclear whether Nepal's traditional political parties are ready to join a new government. Ram Sharan Mahat of the Nepali Congress party said his group was split. "Many of the members suggest that we should not be part of the Maoist-led government or have any partnership with them," he said. "The Maoists were involved in lot of illegal activities during the election, and we were deceived by them."

It seemed clear the Maoists are trying to figure out how to run a country where about 13,000 people died as a result of their decade-long insurgency.

Prachanda's group, still considered terrorists by the United States, has said members were committed capitalists, albeit left-leaning ones, and had no plans to transform Nepal into a communist state. After meeting with foreign ambassadors, including U.S. envoy Nancy Powell, Prachanda expressed hope that Washington would remove his organization from its list of terrorist groups.