KATHMANDU (AFP) — Nepal's Maoists have widened their shock lead in historic polls on the Himalayan nation's political future, election officials said Monday, as the count passed the one-third mark.
The former rebels said the results had placed the impoverished country on track for sweeping change, expected to include the sacking of unpopular King Gyanendra and the abolition of a 240-year-old monarchy.
Of the 601 seats in a new assembly that will rewrite Nepal's constitution, 213 have been decided or were close to being allocated -- with the ultra-republican Maoists taking 104 seats and leading in eight others.
"We were partially surprised by the result. We knew we had a good support from the people, but we had not imagined the victory on this scale," said senior Maoist member Chandra Prakash Gajurel.
"The country is heading towards the new system," he said, but warned the embattled king and his allies could yet try to throw a spanner in the works.
"The biggest challenge could come from regressive forces who could try to disrupt the internal security situation."
The results released so far show the Maoists' main and more moderate rivals left trailing in their wake -- although Gajurel said the ex-rebels would "try to work together with other parties to form a coalition government."
The result is set to bring their promises of revolutionary land reform and abolition of the monarchy crashing against the traditional ruling elites.
Not only do they plan to boot out the king, who is still viewed by many as the reincarnation of a Hindu god, they also want to dismantle the 240-year-old monarchy and turn royal palaces into museums.
Moreover, the former rebels want to overturn what they view as a wider, "feudal" caste-ridden system, vowing sweeping land reforms and an end to the impoverished country's reliance on foreign aid and remittances by overseas workers.
"We are now in an epoch-changing time," Maoist leader Prachanda told jubilant supporters as the scale of his party's performance at the ballot box began to emerge after last Thursday's elections.
A look at the party manifesto hints at what their first moves could be, assuming they get past the first task of kicking out King Gyanendra -- who still has powerful allies in the national army.
"Revolutionary land reforms will be implemented where the land will be owned by those who plough the fields," promises the election manifesto. "We will end the practice of land being owned by feudal landlords."
This would entail tearing land from wealthy landowners who have held sway for generations over the country, which was closed to the outside world until 1950.
In Kathmandu, hundreds of Maoist supporters have been celebrating each constituency win -- chanting slogans and waving hammer and sickle flags.
The April 10 elections were a central plank of a 2006 peace deal under which the Maoists agreed to end a decade-long civil war -- which left at least 13,000 people dead -- and enter mainstream, multi-party politics.
That gamble appears to have paid off for the hardened insurgents -- who are still classed as a "terrorist" organisation by the United States.
"To the astonishment of many, including the Maoists themselves, they have painted Nepal red," wrote the Kathmandu Post newspaper in an editorial under the headline "Red Wave."
Nepal's largest and oldest party, the centrist Nepali Congress, had won just 30 seats and was leading in four others, the election commission said, while the centre-left Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) had won 24 seats and was leading in the count for nine others.
Other parties had won or were on track to win 34 seats.
The Maoists are pushing for the speedy ouster of King Gyanendra, something that now looks certain following their stunning showing at the ballot box.
King Gyanendra ascended the throne after a tragic and bizarre palace massacre in 2001 -- in which the former king and much of the rest of the royal family were gunned down at a party by a lovelorn, drunk, drugged and suicidal prince.
The monarch's status sank in 2005 when he fired the government and seized absolute power to fight the Maoists -- only to push mainstream parties into the arms of the rebels and enter a peace deal that led to Thursday's elections.
Of the 601 seats in a new Constituent Assembly, 240 are appointed on a first-past-the-post system, and it is those results that are being tallied.
Some repolling will take place this week due to election day irregularities, with final results expected on April 22, Election Commission spokesman Laxman Bhattarai said.
Another 335 assembly members will be elected by proportional representation -- a counting method the Maoists are also expected to do well in. It could be "several weeks" before the full results for those seats are known, he said.
The final 26 seats will be appointed by an interim government to be formed after the polls, which the Maoists can be expected to dominate.
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