Polls open for voting in historic election in Nepal
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Polls have opened in a historic Nepal election intended to cement a peace deal with communist insurgents.
Violence spiked in the days before the Thursday vote. But officials say they have no reports of violence or trouble as polling gets under way.
The elections are the first in nine years and come almost exactly two years after Nepal's king was forced to end his royal dictatorship. The Maoists, as the former rebels are known, then gave up their 10-year fight for a communist state that left about 13,000 people dead.
The poll is intended to seal the peace deal with the Maoists, and will likely mean the end of a centuries-old royal dynasty.