High turnout as Nepal voters defy bombing, threats

Millions of Nepalis defied low expectations and threats of violence to vote Tuesday in elections seen as crucial in stabilising the country and breaking its political deadlock seven years after a civil war ended. A bombing in the capital Kathmandu early Tuesday injured three children, but the explosion and a campaign of intimidation by a hard-line Maoist splinter group did not prevent a high turnout, according to election officials.
Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety told a press conference late Tuesday that preliminary figures showed a 70 percent turnout. At this level it would be higher than the 63.29 percent turnout recorded during the country's first post-war elections in 2008, when it voted for a constituent assembly tasked with writing a new constitution.
"Voters have given their decision and it clearly points towards a constitution. I hope this is the last election for a constituent assembly in Nepal," Uprety said. Since 2008, five prime ministers have served brief terms, the country had no leader for long periods, and the 601-member assembly collapsed in May 2012 after failing to complete the peace process.
"My vote is for the future of youngsters and the new generations," 101-year-old voter Lal Bahadur Rai told AFP in a phone interview from a polling station in north-eastern Sankhuwasabha district. Many analysts had judged the national mood to be downbeat as threats of violence and intimidation added to years of political infighting and drift. Hopes of political unity to complete the peace process were dashed when a 33-party alliance, led by the splinter Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), announced it would boycott polls and intimidate voters. In recent days, protestors have torched vehicles and hurled explosives at traffic, leading to more than 360 arrests and one death.
In Kathmandu, a crude bomb explosion in a middle-class residential neighbourhood was the only major violent incident amid a security crackdown which saw 50,000 soldiers and 140,000 police deployed. Nepal's political deadlock in the last five years has had a severe impact on the economy, with annual GDP growth tumbling from 6.1 percent in 2008 to 4.6 percent last year, World Bank figures show. Full results will be announced in about ten days, the chief election commissioner said.