The government of Nepal is in trouble. Nepal is ruled by King Gyanendra, who shared power with an elected legislative assembly until Feb. 1. On that day, King Gyanendra abolished the assembly, banned the legal political parties in the assembly and arrested their leaders and censored the media and Internet.

As of April 24, Nepal's King Gyanendra appears to be nearing his last days in power. Huge mass protests of hundreds of thousands of people are defying a shoot-to-kill curfew after 19 days of a general strike. Massive crowds are gathering on the outskirts of the capital, Katmandu, and attempting to move slowly into the city in the face of the Royal Nepal Army shooting into the crowds. Presumably the protesters are trying to get to the center of Katmandu to the Royal Palace, which was cordoned off a couple days ago with barbed wire and military troops.

A new day had dawned in Nepal. After fighting a decade-long people’s war, which led to a coalition government replacing martial law imposed by the King of Nepal, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is leading the Constituent Assembly elections in Nepal. The vote counting is not completely finished, but at the time of this writing the CPN (Maoist) has won a total of 120 seats, with the opposition Nepali Congress Party coming in a distant second at 37 seats. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) won 33 seats, but following the their election defeat their ministers have resigned from the coalition government cabinet.

On June 11, King Gyanendra left Nepal's royal palace for the last time. He was forced out of power by a powerful revolutionary movement. A new Nepali government is now being formed through a Constituent Assembly, led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

The revolution in Nepal took another step forward with the election of Pushpa “Prachanda” Dahal voted in as the first Prime Minister on August 15th. He won overwhelmingly with 464 of 577 votes cast in the 601 person National Assembly. The loser from the Congress Party obtained 113 votes. This defeat is important because the Congress Party represents the old landowners and wealthy bosses who are putting up roadblocks as the people march towards a new Nepal. The new Prime Minister, Prachanda, as he is popularly known, is the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), and the vote reflects both the mandate granted to his party by the people and the unity built with twenty-one other parties. This new phase of the revolution, ruling the country, follows ten years of fighting a people’s war against a corrupt and hated monarchy and the rich elite. The monarchy is history. The people of Nepal are in power. In the nationwide elections, held in April of this year, Prachanda's party was overwhelmingly favored, getting nearly double the next highest tally for any other party. The CPN (M) ran on a platform of creating a democratic republic, national development for the benefit of all, and equal rights for Nepal's neglected minorities