Poor old lady and her blind son, Annapurna, Nepal.jpg

In 1951, the Nepalese monarch ended the century-old system of rule by hereditary premiers and instituted a cabinet system of government. Reforms in 1990 established a multiparty democracy within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. An insurgency led by Maoist extremists broke out in 1996. The ensuing nine-year civil war between insurgents and government forces witnessed the dissolution of the cabinet and parliament and assumption of absolute power by the king. Several weeks of mass protests in April 2006 were followed by several months of peace negotiations between the Maoists and government officials, and culminated in a November 2006 peace accord and the promulgation of an interim constitution. The newly formed interim parliament declared Nepal a democratic federal republic at its first meeting in May 2008, the king vacated the thron

In September, '08, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the leader of the decade-long Maoist rebellion in Nepal was elected prime minister. Now he must learn how to change the lives of 27 million people in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Skip to next paragraph The election is a milestone in resolving issues remaining after the decade-long civil war, a conflict that claimed the lives of an estimated 13,000 people before it ended with a peace accord in 2006

The Maoists will also press to integrate their former fighters into Nepal's army, a demand that the army is likely to resist vigorously.

e in mid-June 2008, and parliament elected the country's first president the following month.