KEY POINTS:
Jubilant supporters of Nepal's former rebel Maoists have already celebrated their election victory in the troubled Himalayan kingdom.
Preliminary results indicate the Maoists are well on the way to becoming the largest party in the country's first elected constituent assembly, in elections aimed at cementing a peace deal that ended a decade of civil conflict.
Their faces smeared with vermilion, several prominent Maoists who won seats, including their leader Prachanda, who has just one name, staged impromptu victory parades.
"This is the people's victory," hundreds chanted outside a counting centre in Kathmandu, many with a hammer and sickle painted on their faces or with Maoist flags wrapped around their heads.
That the Maoists were on their way to a surprise electoral success has sent shockwaves throughout the region. If the Maoists go on to form the largest party in the constituent assembly, with the power to rewrite the country's constitution, it will mean an end to the 240-year-old monarchy.
"At the rate they are going, the Maoists will be the number one party," predicted Kunda Dixit, editor of the English weekly Nepali Times.
The scale of the Maoists' apparent successes will have already set alarm bells ringing both in Washington, which regards the Maoists as terrorists, and New Delhi, which is grappling with its own Maoist insurgency.
That many analysts predicted a different result is not surprising.
Opinion polls are banned during elections, and while the Maoists were confident, the polling system is a complex mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation.
The questions now are how an organisation dedicated to its brutal "People's War" could so quickly convert to a winning election machine - and what will happen next?
Despite signing a peace deal in 2006 and putting their arms under the supervision of the United Nations, the criminality remains. Maoist enthusiasm for intimidation, robbery, and extortion seems undiminished. The Maoists have moved into exotic lines of smuggling: red sandalwood from India into Tibet, then China; and a kind of fungus called yarchagumba used in Chinese medicine and worth millions of dollars.
Despite all this, the Maoists have been the only party to attempt to get to grips with the kind of social reform many Nepalese are desperate to see.
They have nominated more candidates from traditionally ignored groups of society - women, dalits, ethnic minorities and the Madhesis of southern Nepal - than anyone else, and the average age of their candidates is just 39. They also have plans to change Nepal into a federalist state.
The other two main parties - the Nepali Congress and the left-of-centre UML - are not nearly so representative and have offered little in the way of a manifesto beyond removing the King. Their candidates are the same old faces the Nepalese have been looking at since they first went to the polls in 1991. For almost two decades, voters have watched their representatives become mired in corruption while the country was plunged into conflict.
The consequence is a state that barely functions at all. In Kathmandu, water and electricity supplies are intermittent and rubbish rots on the streets.
Says Maoists secretary Ram Dhakal, known by his party name of "Prasanta": "For the past 20 years, NC and UML haven't done anything for the people. The King has also failed. The Nepalese people want real leadership. They want our agenda, they want new ideas, and they want a new Nepal."
The problem for Prasanta is that his party has headed down a similar road to the one followed by the other parties since it joined the interim government in 2006. And what they might do in power is of concern even to those who voted for them.
"It's a great moment to be a part of the Maoists' victory," said Ratna Maharajan, a 36-year-old grocery shop-owner.
"I hope they don't turn out to be like all the old parties."
It is a moot point. Handed three key ministries, covering the media, environment and planning, the Maoists have faced the same accusations of corruption as their adversaries.
No one in Nepal expects the coming months to be easy.
A time limit of two-and-a-half years has been set to draw up the new constitution. Most voters who queued up to vote last week know they will have to wait a lot longer for a lasting peace.
RISING STAR OF THE HIMALAYAS
The Maoists
The former communist rebels have secured 61 seats out of 115 in constituencies where counting was complete and were leading in most other areas where votes were still being tallied.
Nepali Congress
The traditionally powerful, centrist party was trailing with only 20 seats.
The United Marxist-Leninist
Has only 18 seats and has withdrawn from the coalition government over its poor showing.
Final Results
Results for the 601-seat Constituent Assembly, which will govern Nepal and rewrite the country's constitution, are still a few weeks off, although officials say they should have a clear picture of what it will look like later this week.
- OBSERVER
