Communist parties win majority in Nepal vote

KATHMANDU: An alliance of Nepal's former Maoist rebels and the main Communist party have won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections and are expected to form the next government, according to preliminary results from the election commission late Sunday.

The Communist CPN-UML and the Maoist Party look set for a landslide victory in the landmark polls that mark the end of the Himalayan nation´s drawn-out transition to federal democracy 11 years after the end of a brutal civil war.

The leftist alliance has won 84 seats in the national parliament and leads in a further 31, securing a majority.

The incumbent Nepali Congress has so far won just 13 seats, performing worse than expected.

The lower house of parliament comprises 165 seats that are directly elected and a further 110 that are allocated to parties based on proportional representation votes.

Early tallies show that the Communist alliance will also dominate in most of the seven newly-created provincial assemblies.