Nepal Communists’ Parliament Win Seen as Rebuke of Centrist Party : Elections: Infighting, corruption and broken promises are blamed for defeat in Himalayan kingdom.

To all those political scientists and gloating Cold Warriors who consigned the Communists to the ash heap of history, the Nepalese have delivered a resounding raspberry from atop the Himalayas.

The result could be a political creature that, until Monday, would have been no less improbable than the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman: a hereditary monarchy whose government is led or dominated by professed champions of the toiling masses.

In last week’s elections for a new Parliament in one of the world’s 10 poorest countries, the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist-Leninist (UML) has emerged as the No. 1 vote-getter, obtaining 86 seats against 80 for the centrist Nepali Congress.

“The election results have made it amply clear that the people are in favor of a change,” said the leftist party, which along with Congress was in the forefront of the campaign for restoration of parliamentary democracy in this Hindu kingdom.

Caretaker Congress Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala conceded defeat. “The Nepal people have indicated that they want the Nepali Congress to play the role of a strong opposition in this country,” he said in a statement broadcast by state radio and television.

The humbled 71-year-old politician was possibly more responsible than anyone for his party’s lackluster showing at the polls. He had been prime minister since May, 1991, but bitter Congress infighting, the stench of official corruption and widespread disillusion over his government’s unfulfilled promises sapped his popularity badly.

In that respect, the Nov. 15 verdict of Nepalese voters was more akin to the repudiation that their American counterparts gave President Clinton and other Democrats this month than an embracing of the ideals of Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin.

“UML people are not Communists in the conventional sense of the term,” said Dev Raj Dahal, a political analyst at Tribhuvan University’s Center for Nepal and Asian Studies in Katmandu. “UML’s policies show it is a party of socialists.”

Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, president of the Congress, agreed, saying: “Nepal’s democracy is equally safe in their hands.”

When a mutiny of rebel lawmakers inside his party deprived Koirala of a sure majority, he tendered his resignation July 10. King Birendra, an absolute ruler until the 1990 pro-democracy movement led him to renounce almost all power, asked him to stay on until new elections.

If Koirala was the loser, the final victor in the polling remained to be determined. By itself, the UML fell well short of the 103-seat majority needed to control outright the 205-seat House of Representatives, so it will have to seek coalition partners.

A small Maoist group, the Nepal Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, won four seats, while right-wing monarchists picked up 20. A party based in the Terai flatlands obtained three seats, and independents won six. Counting for the remaining half a dozen seats was not complete, further adding to the uncertainty.

Newly elected UML lawmakers are to meet Wednesday to decide whom they will invite to help form a coalition government. The party statement said they would turn to those same “friendly forces” that took part in the 1990 struggle for the re-establishment of a multi-party system, in which more than 50 people died.

UML sources had ruled out overtures to the right-wing Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, which is mostly made up of people who served in the old system of appointed councils in which the royal palace conducted all affairs of state and parties were outlawed. However, UML general secretary Madhva Kumar Nepal pointedly said that in politics, there are “no permanent enemies, no permanent friends,” and reportedly had begun informal consultations with the RPP, as well as the Maoists and anti-Koirala rebels in Congress.

If may even be too early to count Koirala out. The caretaker prime minister told a news conference at his official residence Monday evening that he would not rule out the possibility of a “national government based on a national consensus” if that were necessary to protect Nepal’s nascent democracy and eliminate the need for another election in the near future to replace a shaky coalition.

Outside of serving in the interim government in 1990-91 that bridged the gap between the absolute monarchy and the election Koirala and his party won, the Communists have never held power in Nepal. In office, the UML has pledged to “encourage foreign investment,” but Nepal, the party’s general secretary, has added, “what we do not want is to allow alien capitalists to harm the interests of native industrialists and businessmen.”

That is an oblique criticism of Indians, who were seen as winning numerous sweetheart deals with the backing of longtime friends in the Nepali Congress. Those transactions fueled feelings of Nepalese nationalism and resentment that gave the UML a definite boost at the polls.

Times special correspondent Adhikary reported from Katmandu, staff writer Dahlburg from New Delhi.