KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- On a cold morning one year ago the phones suddenly went dead in Nepal.
Heavily armed soldiers surrounded the homes of powerful politicians in the Himalayan country. Roadblocks went up in the streets.
The king had taken complete control.
King Gyanendra went on state-run television and radio last February 1 to say the move was necessary to bring sense to the nation's chaotic, corrupt political scene, and crush the Maoist insurgents who had seized control of much of the countryside.
But one year later, Nepal appears to be sliding deeper into crisis, with an autocratic king pitted against an unlikely coalition of fractious political parties and violent communist rebels.
Now, the monarch and the political parties seem on a collision course, with neither ready to give way.
Nepal's royalist government has arrested hundreds of pro-democracy activists, politicians and students ahead of protest rallies planned for Wednesday to mark the anniversary of King Gyanendra's seizure of power, dissidents said.
"We have reports that more than 600 pro-democracy activists have been arrested by the police, and they are continuing raids," said Krishna Sitaula of Nepali Congress, the country's largest party. Sitaula said he and many other dissidents were in hiding, and that his house was raided several times.
Rebels, who started their violent campaign for a socialist state a decade ago and have intensified attacks in recent weeks, launching a raid overnight on a western Nepal town, officials said.
The rebel assault was on the town of Tansen, some 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of Kathmandu.
Fighting continued there Wednesday morning following overnight rebel attacks on an army camp, police station, town jail and government buildings in the town, said Gangadutta Awasti, a government administrator in neighboring Rupandehi district.
Election 'sham'
Recent conflict has arisen over the king's decision to push ahead with February 8 municipal elections, polls that Gyanendra says are the first step towards restoring democracy.
But in the past few weeks he has again clamped down on political freedom, thrown hundreds of politicians into jail, put others under house arrest and muzzled the media.
The parties, for their part, call the polls a sham and a way for Gyanendra to entrench his power. They're urging a boycott.
The Maoists, meanwhile, have threatened to take "severe action" against candidates and election workers. They're already accused of killing one candidate, wounding another and abducting a third.
Nepal has been in turmoil since Gyanendra assumed the crown in 2001 after his brother, King Birendra, was gunned down in a palace massacre apparently committed by Birendra's son, the crown prince, who also died.
Soon after Gyanendra became king, the Maoists intensified their attacks. Public disillusion grew with the politicians, who were seen as corrupt and only interested in keeping power.
Finally, a year ago, the king dismissed the government, accusing it of failing to hold parliamentary elections or end the insurgency.
But 12 months of royal dictatorship have widened the chasm between Gyanendra and the political parties, with leaders across Nepal's political spectrum arguing the king himself poses the biggest hurdle to democracy and a resolution to the decade-long insurgency that has killed more than 12,000 people.
Loyalists uncertain
"The root cause of the present situation is the king's intransigence. By refusing to hold a dialogue with the political parties and pushing ahead with these sham elections, the king has plunged the country into a crisis," said Ram Sharan Mahat, a senior leader of the Nepali Congress, the country's main political party, which ruled for 14 years before the king's takeover.
The king's actions, such as the clampdown on political activity and resorting to military offensives to deal with the Maoists, have even left many of his loyalists uncertain.
"The conflict cannot be won by mere military means," said Pashupati Shamsher J. B. Rana, once a royal confidant and head of the pro-royalist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, or National Democratic Party.
"The ultimate solution is to bring the insurgents into the mainstream through a dialogue, in which ... the king and the parties engage jointly."
That is easier said than done.
The political parties insist the king must first restore the elected parliament and return to his position as constitutional monarch.
"We now have a single theme -- the king should go back to his constitutional role," says Surya Bahadur Thapa, a former prime minister and senior Nepali Congress leader.
Thapa says the king pushed the political parties into forging an alliance with the Maoist rebels.
"It was when the parties saw that the king would not heed them that they joined hands with the Maoists to jointly put pressure on the king," he said.
Opposition alliance
In November, an alliance of seven political parties and the Maoists agreed to a 12-point agenda to step up opposition to the king and restore democracy in Nepal.
However, the king has refused to negotiate with the parties and is determined to go ahead with municipal elections, despite an embarrassingly low candidate turnout. Candidates have registered in less than half the 4,146 election races for local offices in 58 cities and towns.
There is mounting anger on the streets of Kathmandu, where a shrinking economy and growing political unrest have increased the hardships of an impoverished populace.
Ranak Pandey, a Kathmandu shopkeeper, says words like democracy have little meaning when the lives of common people are shrouded in uncertainty because of protest rallies and strikes.
"People just want some order in their lives, some calm," says Pandey.
"Whoever can give us that, whether king or party or Maoist, is welcome."