"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Maoists surge to the fore in early Nepal vote count

KATHMANDU-Nepal's Maoists emerged Sunday as strong early leaders in crucial elections for an assembly that is expected to abolish the world's last Hindu monarchy.The fiercely republican Maoists, who just three years ago were locked in a bloody conflict with the government, have surprised analysts and diplomats who had predicted a much lower level of support.Vote counting continued Sunday-and indeed will last for weeks yet-but by late Saturday the Maoists had won or were leading in 82 constituencies.One of them was won by the movement's charismatic leader Prachanda.The Nepali Congress-Nepal's biggest party with 133 seats in the current 330-seat interim parliament-won or was leading in just 28 areas, election commission spokesman Laxman Bhattarai told AFP.Around 10 million Nepalese voted in Thursday's polls to elect a 601-member assembly whose first tasks will be to rewrite the constitution and abolish the royals.Maoist pre-vote claims that they would emerge as the single biggest party were dismissed as campaigning bluster, but it now looks possible."The people have given us the benefit of the doubt because we come from a different background than the rest of the parties," Ananta, the deputy head of the "People's Liberation Army," told AFP.Around two and a half years ago, Ananta led the last Maoist attack of the war, when 11 policemen were killed after hundreds of rebels stormed a post on the outskirts of Kathmandu.On Saturday, he won an assembly seat in a town just outside the capital."We were portrayed as a party that didn't have much influence or general support. We have proved all the people that said that wrong," said Ananta.Around 10,000 jubilant Maoist supporters gathered outside Kathmandu's main counting centre Saturday to celebrate the victory of chairman Prachanda, whose victory in a constituency in the capital was announced Saturday.Political analyst and professor Lok Raj Baral said the support shown at the polls for the Maoists had caught many off guard."Everyone has underestimated them," hed said.Nepalese voted for the Maoists to allow the Himalayan country to begin its recovery from a decade of bloody civil war that killed at least 13,000 people and crippled an already fragile economy, he told AFP."The people have voted for them so they won't return to the jungle. People have given them a chance because they want radical change," said Baral.The conflict ended in a 2006 peace deal between the Maoists and mainstream parties.Once deadly enemies, the mainstream parties and the rebels made an alliance after King Gyanendra, in February 2005, had sacked the government and assumed direct control.His future as monarch is increasingly bleak, as Nepal's interim government agreed last December that the first meeting of the constituent assembly would formally abolish his dynasty.Thursday's polls, the first major elections here in nearly a decade, were the climax of the peace deal that saw the former rebels place their militia in UN-monitored camps.Arjun Narsingh KC, the spokesman for the Nepali Congress of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, admitted they had faced a formidable foe at the ballot."We have now realised their management and operations were scientific," he said.

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