NEPAL/USA: Police and protesters clash after Nepal "referendum" on king while U.S. describes election as a "hollow attempt to legitmise power"

Record ID: 858677

  • Title: NEPAL/USA: Police and protesters clash after Nepal "referendum" on king while U.S. describes election as a "hollow attempt to legitmise power"
  • Date: 11th February 2006
  • Summary: POLICE STANDING GUARD NEXT TO CROWD
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2006 12:00
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  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADS6XMFTK5HUUBMQ21ATFKZMJN
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  • Story Text: Nepali police clashed with protesters demanding King Gyanendra's ouster on Thursday (February 9), a day after controversial local polls saw a remarkably low turnout seen as a vote against the monarch's year-old power grab.
    Police fired tear gas as protesters burned tyres, hurled rocks and bottles and chanted slogans just a few hundred metres from the royal palace in central Kathmandu. There were no injuries.
    The demonstrators were protesting against Wednesday's (February 8) elections for municipal officials and against the army's killing of a protester during a poll protest.
    "We don't want a murderer government. You can't kill people," they shouted.
    Sujan, an 18-year-old student of the science college in Kathmandu, said they were protesting against a ruler they saw as autocratic.
    "The country is paralysed by today's ministers, the constitution has been thrown away in this country and democracy is still zero percent," Sujan, said.
    Only 20 percent of registered voters turned out on Wednesday -- less than a third of the more than 60 percent in the last such election -- and analysts said it was a clear vote against King Gyanendra and his seizure of power last February.
    A large gathering is expected when the body of an activist shot dead by the army in Nepal's west during a protest on Wednesday is brought to Kathmandu to be honoured.
    Anand Deepak, another student, said they were opposing the killing of protesters in Dang on the election day.
    "Yesterday there was firing and people were killed in Dang for holding a demonstration to boycott the elections. We are protesting against the killing and the elections," Deepak said.
    So far, the parties, themselves unpopular after years of turbulent and volatile misrule, have been unable to ignite a large-scale people's movement against King Gyanendra.
    King Gyanendra justified his seizure of total power as necessary to end the Maoist rebellion, which has killed more than 13,000 people and enters its eleventh year next week.
    But there has been no major progress towards peace.
    Washington described the polls as a "hollow attempt" by the monarch to legitimise his rule and has urged the king to talk with the political parties.
    "The United States believes Nepal's municipal elections called by the King represented a hollow attempt to legitimise his power," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told journalists.
    The United States and Europe want to avoid a Maoist take-over, but even the rebels and the army have said neither side is powerful enough to win on the battlefield, although the rebels do control large parts of the countryside.
    The outcome of Wednesday's elections, for mayors and other relatively powerless posts, means nothing in itself, since the main parties were not involved. As counting continued on Thursday for the 600-plus seats contested, the election commission said 10 candidates from the home minister's party had won mayoral positions along with one from another small royalist party and six non-aligned candidates.
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