Nepal has new Constituent Assembly

KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 27 (UPI) -- Nepal's Constituent Assembly, elected in April, was sworn in Tuesday with members preparing to abolish the Himalayan nation's 240-year-old monarchy.

The 601-member Constituent Assembly, which will write a new constitution to make the country a republic, is 26 members short. Those members are to be appointed by the new Cabinet, which is expected to be led by Maoist leader Prachanda.

Security was extremely tight because of two minor blast incidents the previous day, Nepalnews.com reported.

The assembly is made up largely of members of the three main parties: Prachanda's CPN (Maoists), outgoing Prime Minister G.P Koirala's Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxist Leninist.

With the monarchy expected to be abolished at the first meeting Wednesday, the country will have a ceremonial president and an executive prime minister. The three parties agreed Tuesday all executive powers would vest with the prime minister, one of the party leaders was quoted as saying.

When the monarchy abolished, King Gyanendra, who has already had much of powers stripped away, will give up his crown.

Prachanda's Maoists, who waged a decadelong rebellion against the monarchy until a peace deal in 2006, won more than 200 seats in the April elections to gain the right to form the government.