Maoist party in Nepal rejects elections

More than 70 percent of the 12 million eligible voters cast their votes during Tuesday's election to choose the 601-member Constituent Assembly that would double as the parliament.


Officials called the election successful and mostly free of violence, although a bomb blast near a polling station in Katmandu injured three people and police had to fire into the air in one village when opposition activists stormed a polling station. Pre-election violence injured at least 30 people after an alliance of 33 opposition parties vowed to disrupt the polls and blocked transport routes.

Final election results will take at least a week. None of the political parties is predicted to win a majority and a coalition government is likely, which could take days to form after the final results are announced.

The last assembly, elected in 2008, failed to come up with a constitution because of squabbling among political leaders over who got to lead the nation. They also disagreed on creating a federal system divided by ethnic groups or by geography. The resulting power vacuum has left Nepal without a proper constitution for nearly seven years.