Ballot box takes wing

After a regional peace deal, hopes rise for twice-postponed elections

A CARTOON in Nepal depicts a green ballot box as a bird taking to the sky. Its white wings are peppered with bandages and plasters—but it flies. After the government's agreement with an ethnic alliance ended a regional strike on February 28th, Nepalis heaved a collective sigh of relief. Their politics have been tense since a peace agreement in 2006 ended a ten-year civil war. For more than a year, the country has suffered mass agitation in the south. But at last Nepalis believe that an election to a constituent assembly, now scheduled for April 10th, might finally happen, after two postponements. The assembly is supposed to write a new constitution, revamping the rules of politics.

The accord dampened the anger of Madhesis, southern Nepalese who share cultural ties with each other and with India. They complain of being neglected by the Nepalese government. Fourteen months of protests created havoc in the flat farmlands of the south-east and south-west, and claimed scores of lives. In mid-February strikes shut the south down and blocked fuel deliveries to the whole country, worsening shortages of kerosene, gas, petrol and diesel. Two days after the Madhesi agreement the government signed another, with a second alliance of ethnic and regional groups.