Nepal’s Maoists To Play New Role in Government
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
NEW DELHI — Two years after coming out of the bush, Nepal’s Maoists are marching across the Himalayan kingdom — just not in the way many thought they would.
After a decade-long fight against the government that claimed 13,000 lives, the former insurgents are defying expectations by leading in the early tallies from Thursday’s election for a constitutional assembly that will shape a new Nepal.
Maoist candidates took 108 of the 196 districts where counting had been completed yesterday, putting the movement far ahead of the traditional political parties — the centrist Nepali Congress with 31 seats and the rival Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Lenninst) with 27.
