KATHMANDU: Nepal’s premier Khilraj Regmi urged the country yesterday to vote without fear in crucial upcoming elections, as ongoing violence by anti-poll protestors claimed its first fatality.
“We would like to request all the voters to participate in the maximum numbers,” Regmi said in a televised address to the nation last evening.
“The government is committed to provide security to all the people,” he said ahead of Tuesday’s vote, only the second such polls since a 10-year civil war launched by Maoist rebels ended in 2006 and the former guerrillas entered politics.
Since then, political infighting has confounded efforts to draft a constitution and conclude the peace process, leading to the collapse of Nepal’s first constituent assembly in May 2012.
Meanwhile, anti-poll demonstrators have stepped up efforts to disrupt the November 19 vote in recent days, torching vehicles and hurling explosives at traffic while police have arrested more than 270 people. Ram Kumar Deuja, a truck driver’s assistant injured in an attack in southern Nepal last week became the first fatality of the protests Sunday, a police official in the capital said.
“Deuja was injured on Thursday when demonstrators threw a petrol bomb at his truck. He died this morning, he was the first casualty since the anti-poll protests began,” police official Kalika Lamichhane said.
The attacks by demonstrators belonging to a hardline faction of the Maoist party have raised security fears, with many wondering if voters will brave the threat to cast their ballot.
Authorities have deployed 50,000 soldiers and 140,000 police personnel to guard polling stations. Former US president Jimmy Carter, who is in Kathmandu to lead a 50-member team of election observers said he was confident the polls would proceed smoothly. AFP
