BIKRAM RAI
More than 70 percent of eligible voters turned up on Tuesday to cast their ballot, despite blatant threats issued by the hardline Maoist faction and its allies and the spate of violence in the run up to D-day. It is now abundantly clear that the dash-Maoists are out of touch with public sentiment and the party now faces an uncertain future in national politics. What is also beginning to look clearer, as the vote count trickles in from across the country, is that Nepalis have made a different choice this time.

Winner of 2008, the UCPN (M), is trailing behind the UML and NC and has suffered several embarrassing defeats in the direct ballot. The most humiliating loss has come in Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s constituency of Kathmandu-10 and the chairman has since gone on a rampage crying foul, threatening to boycott the vote count and come out on the streets.

However, the winners cannot afford to be smug and complacent. Their collective failure to agree on power-sharing and contentious issues in the draft constitution led to the death of the previous CA. The parties have only option now: be more honest and responsible towards the nation and its people. Nepalis will no longer accept their ifs and buts.