By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : As Nepal’s Maoists are set to lead the government after years of guerrilla war, congratulations are pouring in from communist parties worldwide who say the electoral victory would pave the way for a new world order.
On Thursday, the seventh day of ballot counting after last week’s historic constituent assembly election, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – once hunted down by security forces and Interpol as a terrorist organisation – remained way ahead of its rivals, winning 119 of the 224 seats declared so far.
The first felicitations came from the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist), which said the victory was proof of the Maoists’ “strong ties with masses in Nepal as well as the determination of the Nepali people for a new, peaceful, independent, sovereign and democratic republic of Nepal”.
Sending a message to Maoist chief Prachanda from Athens, Chris Mais, leader of the Greek party, said the success had generated “great satisfaction and excitement to the Greek communists and all the progressive people in our country” and would open “a new considerable page for the people in Nepal and the whole world for national and social liberation”.
The Communist Party of Italy – CARC – said the Maoist triumph was the “victory of the world communist movement”.
“It is the first victory of the world communist movement in the 21st century,” the international department of the party said in its congratulatory message.
“The Maoists carried out the people’s war up to victory, alternating and combining armed struggle and political relations with bourgeois and revisionist parties,” the message said.
The Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada, which had during the Maoists’ “People’s War” sent its representatives to Nepal to show solidarity by helping to build a road in Rolpa, where the armed revolt began, said the Maoist victory gave it encouragement to continue its own struggle “with even more vigour”.
The Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist) from Sri Lanka extended its “revolutionary greetings” and expressed “solidarity” with “all parties and organisations of the world who dare to bring down the system and usher in the new world”.
The Workers Party of New Zealand, which had sent its representative Jared Phillips to Nepal during the insurgency to network with underground Maoist leaders, said the election victory was “a blow against under-development, poverty, and repression, and a stride forward for liberation everywhere.”
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), whose Nepal ally, the CPN-UML, suffered a terrible defeat, has also congratulated the Maoists. And one Indian politician, Sharad Yadav, has urged the Indian Maoists to emulate the Nepalese Maoists and take to democratic politics.
As polling started in four districts where the process had been disrupted last week due to violence and the killing of contestants, the current ruling parties were still floundering, with little hope of catching up.
While Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress (NC), which won the last general election in 1999, bagged 34 seats, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), once the rulers of Kathmandu Valley, had managed to bag only 31.
Headed for majority in the first phase of the election, in which 240 representatives would be chosen for the 601-member assembly, the Maoists were also way ahead in the second phase, in which a proportional representation (PR) system has been chosen to elect 335 members.
The Maoists had captured over 32 percent of the seats under the PR system and were likely to head the new government. But it would still be a coalition.