Word: nepal
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Yesterday, in their droves, the people of Nepal voted for an end to politics as they once were. Some trudged for days through mountain paths to reach polling booths, others lined up for hours on deserted streets, braving threats of violence from extremist groups-yet, by day's end, nearly 65% of the nation's voting population had exercised their franchise. Politicians of all factions proudly strutted before the ballot box, wreathed in flower garlands, sporting triumphant smiles. They were all participating in a process that aims to replace Nepal's 240-year-old monarchy with a secular republic...
...Many foreign observers feared these elections-postponed twice already-would fail. Nepal is a country still in the shadow of a bloody decade-long civil war fought between Maoist rebels and the monarchy's security forces, interrupted, albeit briefly, by the 2001 massacre of eleven members of the royal family allegedly at the hands of the king's own son. A peace deal brokered two years ago brought the remnants of the monarchy to its knees and the Maoists into the political mainstream, but efforts to further the process along have been marred throughout by political squabbling and vigilante violence...
...sense of dread that haunted Nepal's trek to the polls is fading fast. "The mood is almost euphoric," says Kunda Dixit, editor of the English-language Nepali Times and a prominent democracy advocate. More than half of the registered electorate in Kathmandu voted in just the first few hours of polling. Despite a scattering of incidents-one candidate was gunned down, an eight others were killed in factional fighting-only 33 of 20,882 voting stations nationwide reported that polling was disrupted...
After ten years of violence, the Maoists, the political parties, and the royal family have agreed on a roadmap for the future of Nepal: a Constituent Assembly (CA) in 2008. The CA plan required many long meetings, boycotts, riots and lives before all the three key players in Nepal could agree on a set of rules. The eventual compromise was a win-win solution for everyone. The political parties had their demands for elections met, the Maoists were able to induct direct representation in the elections, and the royal family was allowed to continue till after the CA when...
...would abdicate in favor of his son and that the country, after nearly a century of mostly benign royal rule, would become a constitutional monarchy with a popularly elected parliament. Most Bhutanese were horrified, fearing that democracy could lead to instability, as it had in neighbors such as Nepal and Bangladesh. But the King insisted, explaining that no nation should be in the hands of one person and that change should happen while the country was still peaceful and prosperity was growing...