The Path To Power
The decade-long war ultimately led the Maoists to Nepal’s parliament. After winning a remarkable majority in the Constitutional Assembly elections, Prachanda was nominated for the Prime Ministership by the party. In the April 2008 Constituent Assembly election, he was elected from Kathmandu constituency-10, winning by a large margin, and receiving nearly twice as many votes as his nearest rival, the candidate of the Nepali Congress. He also won overwhelmingly in Rolpa constituency-2, receiving 34,230 votes against 6,029 for Shanta Kumar Oli of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), CPN(UML). With the CPN(M) appearing to have won the election, Prachanda pledged that the party would work together with other parties in crafting the new constitution, and he assured the international community, particularly India and China, that the party wanted good relations and cooperation. He also said that the party had expressed its commitment to multi-party democracy through the election.
Following power-sharing discussions that lasted several months, Prachanda was elected as Prime Minister by the Constituent Assembly on 15 August 2008 and he was sworn in as a Prime Minister on 18 August 2008.
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