Nepal: Ruling Party Merges With Maoists, Unifying Left-Wing

Nepal's newly-formed leftist government has merged with the Maoist party, further unifying the left coalition in the country and forming a super-bloc in the region, officials announced on Tuesday.

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"This is an agreement to merge, but there are other issues we need to conclude before we completely unify," senior Maoist leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha told the AFP, adding that the transition process will take at least a month.

The announcement comes after the Communist Party of Nepal's Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, who won nearly two-thirds of the votes in the elections held late last year, was sworn in as prime minister.

Observers view the recent move as the beginning of a new era for country's politics which saw itself mired in a civil war in the 1990's.

The Maoists previously fought government forces in a bitter civil war to overthrow Nepal's 240-year-old Hindu monarchy, which claimed nearly 16,000 lives.

In 2006, the Maoist and the then government reached a peace deal effectively ending the civil war and paving way for democratic elections. With former Guerrilla leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also the chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal, becoming country's first post-war prime minister.

On January 2007, a new interim constitution was introduced, with Maoists holding  84 seats in the 329-member interim legislature.
Political historian Aditya Adhikari told the AFP, the merger was a "rare union" between two sides with starkly different backgrounds.

"If they manage to stick together it will change the future of Nepal's politics," said Adhikari, who authored a book on the history of Nepal's Maoist struggle, "The Bullet and the Ballot Box."

"But they will likely function as a coalition or two factions within a party, negotiating power-sharing," Adhikari said.