Today Nepal officially ended its 240 year old monarchy. Although I am no fan of monarchies in principle, I fear this might be the beginning of the end for Nepal's democracy, such as it is.
I visited Nepal for a month in 1999, trekking in the Himalayas, lounging in Kathmandu, hiking through rhino and tiger country in Royal Chitwan National Park.
Nepal was (is) a desperately poor place with a corrupt and unresponsive government, both on the elected and monarchic sides. I talked to several people who openly expressed sympathy with the Maoist revolutionaries.
Communist revolutionary movements can only take root in places where a significant number of people are so desperately alienated from the economy and political power that there seems to be no alternative. Democracy has done little for the majority of the people, and the country that attracts billions of dollars of tourist income sees it vanish into the hands of corrupt officials.
Most Communist revolutions have occurred because the powers in charge made life so intolerable that anything was better. Thus I believe that the revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba and Nicaragua were all justified by local events.
Unfortunately in all these cases the problem became that the revoultionaries stayed in power. Communists are great at mobilizing revolutions to overthrow corrupt regimes, but they are horrible at running societies and economies.
I think the Maoists in Nepal are playing a crafty game of temporarily sharing power, orchestrating the ouster of the monarchs, and then they will try to use the electoral process to seize complete power. Then they will left to run things, which they will do badly. Tourism will collapse, India will fear China's influence over the local Maoists, and the people will be repressed.
You heard it here first, folks....
