Delegates from Nepal’s political parties convened a special assembly yesterday and voted 597 to 4 to abolish the 239-year-old Shah dynasty, a very sad moment for hindu civilisation
The government has told unpopular King Gyanendra to vacate his pink pagoda-roofed palace in the capital Kathmandu within a fortnight, or be forced out… It has been a dramatic decline and fall for a king once waited upon by thousands of retainers. Many Nepalis revered the monarch in majority-Hindu Nepal as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the god of protection.
Now, his portrait has been wiped off bank notes and his name has disappeared from the national anthem. He has been asked to pay his own electricity bills.
Nepalis say much of the mystique of the royal family was destroyed by the 2001 palace massacre in which popular King Birendra and eight other royals were killed by then Crown Prince Dipendra, who then turned a gun on himself. The royal image was further tarnished after Gyanendra fired the government and assumed absolute powers in 2005, only to be humbled by weeks of anti-king protests a year later.
Political parties and Maoists say a new president will step into the king’s place as a head of state after the end of the monarchy. link
And thus the world welcomes its newest republic. The palace is to become a historical museum after the king departs, but no word yet on where the new president will reside. Especially since the new president has not been selected/elected yet:
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