Maoist PlaybookEarlier this month, a secret document circulated among Nepal watchers, allegedly outlining how the former rebel Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is going to steal the election.
"First of all, [Nepali] Congress should be swept away. . . . Hit on their morale; their fortress should be destroyed; they should not be allowed to move around; discourage them so that they completely lose the election," stated the bullet-pointed document, dated Feb. 26.
"Set up a district-wide intelligence network to find: who's who, who's where, what's he doing, how's he, what does he do on a daily basis, and what kind of role he will have until the election."
The document goes on to urge members of the Maoist youth wing, the Young Communist League (YCL), to collect homemade weapons and ensure that any deceased or absent voters miraculously manage to vote -- Maoist of course.
The language used and a reference to a meeting held in "YCL's food storehouse" suggests it did not come from the top brass of the party, but probably a YCL district leader. There is an outside chance the document is even an elaborate fake, designed to discredit the Maoists.
What gives it the ring of authenticity, however, is that it gives a fairly accurate description of what has come to pass in the first two weeks of election campaigning.
There have been daily clashes between the YCL and other political parties. The main targets have been the UML, the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) -- which infuriated the Maoists by refusing to join them in what would have been a powerful "left front" -- and royalist parties.
To be fair, the Maoists aren't the only party making mischief.
They have been on the receiving end in several clashes with the UML. At an all-party meeting on March 24, Maoist chairman "Prachanda" claimed that seven of his cadre have been killed so far in the campaign period, although it's uncertain if their deaths were directly related to the election. Prachanda accused the media and the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) of being biased against the Maoists.
In a firmly worded report on the electoral environment, UNMIN singled out the Maoists for their intimidation and violence.
"The pattern of these incidents has raised serious questions about whether the CPN-M, or significant parts of it, are willing to engage in a genuinely free and fair democratic process," said the statement, in unusually direct language for the U.N.
The U.N. findings were echoed by Nepal's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on March 25.
"We did not find the security situation satisfactory in any of the four regions which we visited recently," said Ram Nagina Singh, head of NHRC's election monitoring team. "Candidates, their cadres, voters and human rights activists have not been provided security."
On March 24, leaders of the Seven Party Alliance, plus the Maoists -- colorfully referred to as "SPAM" by some local media -- agreed to put an end to election-related violence, but only the next two weeks will tell if they are serious
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