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[OMEN]

Nepal's leading political parties are locked in a power struggle as celebrations of the end of the monarchy and the dawn of the world's newest republic ebbed.

A specially elected assembly toppled the Himalayan nation's 239-year-old monarchy last week and ordered deposed King Gyanendra to vacate his palace within two weeks.

But political parties, including the Maoist former rebels who won a surprise victory in April's elections for a constituent assembly, are yet to agree on how to form a new government or elect a president.

The Maoists, who emerged as the biggest political party in the assembly but lack a majority, want both the posts of prime minister and president.

Political parties have agreed to have a symbolic president and a powerful prime minister in the new republican system.

But the centrist Nepali Congress, the second biggest group in the assembly, say the Maoists are demanding too much.

"They can't have both the posts of a prime minister and the president at the same time," said Ram Chandra Poudel, a senior leader of the Nepali Congress.

"The Maoists want to have a totalitarian system and we cannot allow this to happen," he added. "We'll not kneel down."

Under a 2006 peace deal, the Maoists have confined more than 19,000 former fighters to camps and locked their weapons in containers monitored by the United Nations, although they retain their keys.

Poudel, who is also peace and reconstruction minister, said the Maoists should hand their weapons over to the government or destroy them, return property they seized during the war and disband their youth wing before forming a new government.

The Maoist youth wing, the Young Communist League, has been blamed for continued violence and intimidation even after the Maoists joined the political mainstream.

Senior Maoist leader and Local Development Minister Dev Gurung accused the Nepali Congress of double standards.

Its leader, outgoing Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, also performed the ceremonial duties of the head of state after Gyanendra was stripped of almost all of his powers after surrendering absolute power in 2006.

"They are biased. We can't accept this," Gurung said.

The Maoists have threatened to organise street protests if they were not allowed to form a government on their terms within two to three days.

The abolition of the monarchy was the centrepiece of the peace deal that ended a decade-long civil war which killed more than 13,000 people.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

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