Daily Archives: April 12, 2008

All photos by Wagle

While one comrade’s Madal loudly sings, the other comrade’s guitar happily watches: A Maoist supporter plays guitar while the other waves his guitar on the air as some of their comrades sing songs making fun of CPN UML and its general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal who was defeated by CPN Maoit’s Jhakku Subedi. They sang the song as soon as Jhakku was announced the winner by the Election Commission. Continue reading →

Pics by Wagle

Japanese members of Parliament Gaku Hashimoto (left), son of late former Japanese prime minister and a friend of Nepal Ryutaro Hashimoto, and Tadahiko Ito (middle) and Japanese ambassador to Nepal Tatsuo Mizuno (right) display their thumbs with “I-voted” marks on the nails at a press conference in Kathmandu yesterday. Both members of the Japanese parliament had come to Nepal on April 9 to observe the elections. They retunred on April 11. They said that they were so much impressed with the enthusiastic participation of Nepali people in the election that they decided to get the ink mark on their fingers even though they didn’t vote! Continue reading →

Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal

This has been a historical election in every sense. Honestly even the Maoists hadn’t thought that they would show such a robust performance throughout the country and win swiftly and convincingly like the way they are doing in various constituencies. Prachanda’s victory in Kathmandu-10 is one of the most spectacular shows as of now and will probably remain as one by the end of the counting all over the country. Look at the numbers: Prachanda’s 20499 Vs 11103 (NC) and 6216 (UML).

This is not just about Prachanda winning. Look ma, who have LOST:

Madhav Kumar Nepal, General Secretary of UML
Shusil Koirala, acting president of NC
Bam Dev Gautam, senior leader of UML
Khum Bhadur Khadka, senior leader (and corruption-in-charge) of the NC

Plus, look at who HAS won from NC:

Narahari Acharya, a leader with clean image who is considered the proponent of republicanism in Nepali Congress

Those with clean image (or relatively clean) or new faces have won. The only candidate in Kathmandu who should have own but couldn’t is UML’s Yogesh Bhattarai who is young and with clean image.

Oldies Must Go: Madhav Nepal, UML General Secretary, has decided to quit which is good. NC’s acting president Sushil Koirala must follow the suit. [Update: Sushil has reportedly announced his resignation.] The entire central committees of these parties must resign give way to new and young leadership. The parties can’t be hostage of these old and incompetent leaders. Come on, how long they plan to hold their respective posts? Life long? Where is democracy them oldies? Sushil has been maneuvering the Congress politics for the past several years as general secretary and vice president and acting president. Girija Prasad Koirala should resign from the presidency of Congress though he should be commended for holding the CA elections successfully as the Prime Minister. Of course, it seems he should handover the premiership (and also the Head Of State post) to Prachanda as soon as the Constituent Assembly convenes.

I want to recall how intensely we used to have debates about election in our office canteen. Many of the reporters were saying that Maoists would get at most 30 seats. If you said they should get around 50, chances would be that you would be deprived of your tea! Continue reading →

All photos by Wagle
Click here for the story that I wrote in Kantipur

Forget about pre-recorded stuffs, results are coming in live. Equipped with mobile phones, noodles in their bags and amazing level of energy and enthusiasm young reporters of dozens of radio stations across the country are continuously providing the latest figures of vote counting to Nepali people. Not only FM radios but for the first time in the history of Nepali elections at least four TV channels are providing continuous (and mostly live) updates. Inexperience reporters who are doing all this for the first time in their career are trying their best. Kiran Adhikari, a reporter with a FM station in Kathmandu, updates his listeners with the latest figures from the vote counting station in the City Hall.

A man was present with the Sun and Moon in front of the Rastriya Sabha Griha where votes of 1-4 constituencies of Kathmandu are being counted. “Everyone has forgotten the national flag,” he said. “I want to remind them about this.” Earlier in the morning he had participated in the victory rally of Nepali Congress candidate Prakash Man Singh. Continue reading →