Today is an important day in the history of Nepal as polls have opened in an election that is intended to devise a peace deal with communist insurgents. The pre-polling period was marred by wide-spread violence. A series of bomb blasts have taken place in the last few days.

 

The elections in Nepal are the first in nine years and come almost two years after the king was forced to end his royal dictatorship. Today’s election marks the culmination of a two-year peace process in which all the major parties have proclaimed the birth of a "new Nepal".

 

Thursday’s election will elect an assembly that will write a new constitution putting an end to the decade long Maoist insurgency and centuries of royal monarchy. It is expected that a republican majority in a coalition administration will come into power and the royal monarchy will be abolished.

 

The Maoist party, with a history of violence behind it, has been accused of attacking opposition candidates and pressurizing voters.

 

Until 1950 Nepal was closed to the outside world and ruled by a hereditary line of autocratic prime ministers. Democracy in Nepal was only fully established in 1990 and about six years later Maoist insurgency began to grow in the Himalayan kingdom.

 

It is an emotional and historic moment for people of Nepal as it will mark separation of the centuries old monarchy, the state and religion.