Nepal’s Maoist landslide, Prashant Jha

Prashant Jha — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:14:25 +0100

Prashant Jha is a political analyst and commentator with the Nepali Times. He also writes for Himal South Asian and other publications

The results of the general election in Nepal on 10 April 2008, won overwhelmingly by the Maoists - officially the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) - have come as a complete shock. Many people thought the former armed rebels would be a distant third, winning perhaps fifteen-to-twenty of the 240 seats directly elected to the constituent assembly under a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system (335 of the remainder are elected under proportional representation). Some argued that the Maoists would do better than conventional wisdom in the capital Kathmandu suggested, giving them about thirty-to-forty of the FPTP seats. Only a few voices sensed the people's desperate yearning for change, the Maoist base among the young and marginalised, and flagged the possibility of the party coming in second - or first.

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Nepal’s Maoist landslide, Prashant Jha