Nepal is holding municipal elections today, the first vote for the people of the country in seven years. The King is heralding it as a step toward democracy in a country besieged by a Maoist insurgency. With any luck, the country will return to normal within good time and everyone will live happily ever after. Oh, sunny days!

Or not. Unlike other posts about elections and the spread of democracy, this is anything but.

It has been exactly a year and a week since the King took absolute power by disbanding the parliament. He is now attempting to legitimize his rule through municipal elections. Problem is, the country’s seven main parties, who represent over 90% of the parliament, have boycotted the polls. Meanwhile, the Maoists have relinquished their ceasefire, leaving half of the municipal seats uncontested and royalists likely to win most of them in the face of massive fraud and fear. Voting has begun, and it looks like the people aren’t buying what he has to sell. Seriously, read the whole article. You will be astounded.

In reality, this election is not about restoring democracy, but trying to establish a legitimacy for the King’s power grab. Unfortunately for him, the mass boycott of the polls has dealt him a much different deck of cards. The whole precipice of his disbanding the parliament was that it was too ineffective at fighting the Maoists. However, by alienating the parties and the population at large, he has made them even more dangerous.

Though he has rounded up thousands of journalists, activists, politicians, and everyday citizens in his campaign of repression of dissent, he is by no means absolute. Protests have been growing steadily in frequency and in size since last year, creating a massive mobilization of the entire country and calls for a return of the real elected parliament by the United States and India. The ones he used to draw upon for power have abandoned him. He is illegitimate.

For Nepal, this is not a victory by the Maoists, who are doing everything they can to take the King out of power. Staying home from the polls is a vote in favor of truly returning the country to democracy. If the King cannot do this, he risks large cross-sections of society and the political parties making a temporary alliance with the Maoists in order to see him ousted and new parliamentary elections held with the Maoists involved. If he truly wants what is best for his country, he will give it up now.

*****
– Paramendra Bhagat has a roundup of all his posts leading up to this election.

– United we Blog! has several posts about about voter apathy and the mass boycott. Just scroll.