Nepal, May 25: Nepal's capital Kathmandu continued to be rocked by protests at the weekend as opposition parties demanded a government of national unity after the resignation of the country's royalist Prime Minister. Five key political parties have been demanding King Gyanendra to solve a prolonged political crisis and usher in multi-party democracy.
But the monarch has ignored weeks of sustained and often violent street protests.
The parties have been against King Gyanendra since he sacked an elected government in 2002 for a loyalist cabinet in the face of a bloody Maoist rebellion. Officials said Gyanendra was looking for a "clean" replacement for royalist Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa who resigned in the first week of May after weeks of demonstrations against the king.
Political parties say the King must appoint their nominee as the new leader in the latest crisis to hit Nepal, already battling to quell an eight-year Maoist revolt aimed at replacing the monarchy with a communist state. More than 9,000 people have died during eight years of fighting by the Maoists, who want to replace the monarchy with a communist republic. Peace talks with the rebels have failed to get off the ground.
The insurgency has wrecked Nepal's desperately poor economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism and foreign aid.
The king says he is committed to a constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy. But analysts and diplomats who have met Gyanendra say he dislikes the opposition parties because he feels they are corrupt and have failed to address acute poverty since multi-party democracy was set up in 1990.
Nepal has suffered instability from party infighting and frequent changes of government and leaders over the past 14 years. Thapa was the 13th Prime Minister since 1990. Bureau Report