APSN | Nepal votes for new Constituent Assembly

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Nepal votes for new Constituent Assembly

BBC News - November 19, 2013

Nepal sees record turnout as voters seek path out of stalemate - Christian Science Monitor. November 19, 2013
Top Nepal judge becomes head of interim government - Associated Press. March 15, 2013
Nepal's answer to deadlock: Making chief judge PM - Associated Press. March 6, 2013
Nepal parties agree on interim PM, new elections - Associated Press. February 19, 2013
Nepal to issue 'third gender' IDs - Associated Press. January 22, 2013

Voters in Nepal are going to the polls to elect members of a new assembly tasked with writing a constitution, after years of delay.

The vote is the second since a 10-year Maoist insurgency ended in 2006. No clear winner is expected this time. As polls opened, a blast in Kathmandu, injured three people, one a child, officials say.

A previous assembly elected in 2008 was supposed to draft a constitution after the overthrow of the monarchy. But it was bitterly divided and never accomplished its task.

An interim government formed earlier this year by Nepal's major parties has overseen the elections and is led by the Supreme Court's chief judge, Khilraj Regmi. On the eve of the vote, he condemned sporadic violence in different parts of the country and said the security forces would ensure a free and fair election.

A group of opposition parties, led by a breakaway Maoist faction, has called for nationwide disruption of the vote. It wanted a new government – with representation from all the political parties – to conduct elections at a later date.

'Belligerent leaders'

Late on Monday, two people were injured in an explosion in Kathmandu, the Associated Press news agency reported. A second blast outside a polling station in the capital injured three people just hours after voting began on Tuesday.

"A bomb exploded at 10:00 today in Bhote Bahal neighbourhood in Kathmandu. Three people including a child have been injured," a police spokesman told AFP news agency. The child was reported to be eight years old.

Local media reported long queues at polling stations in the capital. Tirtha Narayan Manandhar, 85, told AFP news agency that he was pleased to have voted.

"Although I exercised my rights and cast my votes, I am not sure our belligerent leaders will deliver the constitution," he added.

The election is seen as vital in moving the country towards greater political stability. But Nischal Pandey, director of the Centre for South Asia studies in Kathmandu, said if voter turnout was low he feared there could be another hung parliament.

"We're currently in the situation where there is no constitution, there is no elected government, there is no elected parliament and also there are no elected local bodies. So it's a complete vacuum from the top to the bottom," he told the BBC's Andrew North ahead of the vote.

The Himalayan nation became a republic in 2008, ending 240 years of monarchy. Five governments have come and gone – two of them headed by the Maoists – since the former rebels won most votes but fell short of an outright majority in elections that followed.

The assembly elected then was originally given two years to draft a new constitution. The deadline was repeatedly extended but it could not deliver, and was dissolved more than a year ago.

Some 12 million voters are eligible to vote for the 601-member Constituent Assembly. More than 100 parties are contesting the elections, including three major ones, the Maoists, the Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxist-Leninist. Of the more than 16,000 candidates, nearly 6,000 are women.

Hundreds of foreign observers will be monitoring the polls.