Nepal

CALCUTTA, India — Nepal, the world’s last Hindu kingdom, was poised to be reborn as a republic Wednesday, as a newly elected assembly led by former Maoist guerillas prepared to meet to fulfill the leftists’ principal campaign promise.

Exactly when and how the monarch, King Gyanendra, would leave Narayanhity, the main palace in the capital, Katmandu, was not clear. He has made no public statements in recent weeks about his plans, though his supporters have made their disappointment known by setting off small bombs in the capital. On Tuesday, an explosion in the center of the capital injured six people and a royalist organization called Ranbir Sena claimed responsibility.

The government has urged the king, a businessman with interests in tobacco and hotels, to move from the pink concrete Narayanhity to his private residence, a high-walled compound in Katmandu, or face eviction by force. “If he does not leave the palace then the government might have to use force to vacate the palace,” Ram Chandra Poudel, the peace and reconstruction minister said on Tuesday, according to a Reuters report. “This will not be good for him.”
On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that the government would give him 15 days to leave the palace.

Security was tightened across Katmandu and celebrations began, with the government declaring a three-day holiday starting Wednesday to mark the birth of the republic.
The vote by a special assembly, elected last month, would formalize the dissolution of the 239-year-old monarchy in Nepal.

King Gyanendra, who had taken control of the government in early 2005, lost most of his powers two years ago when street protests in Katmandu forced him to cede power to the elected government. Soon, Maoist insurgents came out of the jungle after 10 years of war, turned themselves into politicians and demanded an end to the monarchy. The government, which they joined, complied.

It removed the king as head of the army, dropped the word “royal” from the name of the national airline, and drafted a new national anthem which no longer demanded allegiance to the throne. The king was required to pay taxes, and his likeness was replaced by Mount Everest on the country’s currency, starting with the 500-rupee note.

Last year, under pressure from the Maoists, the Parliament voted to declare Nepal, a nation of 27 million people wedged strategically between India and China, a federal democratic republic.
The Constituent Assembly, as the parliament is known, took the final, official step: rewriting the Constitution altogether, starting with the question of monarchy. It seems all but certain that the assembly will scrap it.

The Communist Party (Maoist) holds more than a third of the legislature’s 601 seats and is the largest party in the new assembly. Its leader, who is known by his nom de guerre, Prachanda, or in Nepali, the fierce one, is expected to take over as prime minister. The parties have also agreed to have a ceremonial president with limited powers.

Nepali Congress, the nation’s oldest political party, won 110 seats, followed by the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) with 103 seats, and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, representing the plains bordering India, with 52 seats.

The country’s three largest parties agreed this week to turn Narayanhity palace into a national museum once the king leaves. Gyanendra took the throne after a gruesome palace massacre in June, 2001, in which his brother, then-King Birendra and most of the royal family were killed by Crown Prince Dipendra, who then shot himself. Gyanendra and his family survived.

The assembly, which was sworn in Tuesday, will govern Nepal for up to two years, while it drafts a new constitution. That will not be easy, as there remain several challenges to sealing peace in the country. Chief among them is the fate of 20,000 ex-Maoist fighters, who are currently in camps under United Nations supervision.

The Maoist leadership wants them to be integrated into the military, but that proposal is likely to face stiff resistance from the Nepalese Army and the other main parties. Perhaps the bigger challenge is what to do about the fallout from the war: disappearances, displaced persons, and property seized by the guerrillas. “There are many other peace process commitments as yet unfulfilled,” the chief U.N. envoy to Nepal, Ian Martin, told reporters on Tuesday.

Original Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/asia/29nepal.html?ref=world