Nepal's Maoists pledged on Thursday that the world's last Hindu monarchy will be abolished swiftly after final results from landmark polls gave the ultra-leftists a resounding victory.

"The first meeting of the constituent assembly will definitely end the monarchy and there will not be any compromise on this," Maoist leader Prachanda told journalists.

The former rebel chief, who goes by one name, spoke after meeting foreign ambassadors and UN officials as he prepared to take charge of the new government.

Despite their surprise victory, the Maoist leader said that the ex-insurgents could not rule out the use of violence.

"Right now, I cannot renounce every kind of violence," Prachanda, or the "fierce one" warned.

"We want to lead this process to a logical conclusion and we want to create a model of peace. Through this we want to renounce reactionary violence," said Prachanda.

He did not explain what he meant by "reactionary violence" but shortly after, Maoist spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara contradicted him.

"We can't think of engaging in violence again when we are coming to power through the ballot," Krishna Bahadur Mahara told AFP.

A resounding victory

The Maoists, who fought a bloody insurgency that ended in 2006 with 13 000 dead, swept double the number of seats of their nearest rivals and favourites, officials said on Thursday.

After counting was completed late on Wednesday, the Maoists "emerged well ahead," election commission official Matrika Shrestha told AFP.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) won a total of 217 seats in the new 601-member constituent assembly, which is expected to sit for the first time in coming weeks and abolish the 240-year-old monarchy.

The Nepali Congress — traditionally the dominant party in the Himalayan nation Ô took just 107 seats in the 10 April polls, election officials also said.

After being Nepal's second largest party for years, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) won 101 seats in the body that will chart the impoverished country's political future.

The new government is due to fill a further 26 seats.

Despite the historic win, the Maoists want to work with their defeated foes in building a coalition government.

"We all have to respect the people's mandate and all parties should work together to fulfil the people's wishes for peace and progress," senior Maoist Dinanath Sharma told AFP.

Controversial reign

King Gyanendra was forced to end a short period of direct rule in April 2006 after mass protests by the Maoists and mainstream parties.

Gyanendra began his reign in 2001 under a cloud of grief and suspicion, after nine members of the family of the previous king were killed by a crazed crown prince who then shot himself.

In February 2005 Gyanendra sacked the government and took direct control of the nation, a move that pushed the mainstream parties into an alliance with their former Maoist enemies.

Last December, Nepal's interim parliament agreed that the monarchy would be formally abolished in the first meeting of the assembly, before the body goes on to re-write Nepal's constitution.

The elections were a central strand of the 2006 historic peace deal the Maoists signed with mainstream parties, ending the decade-long insurgency.

The new constitution would be Nepal's third. A brief flirtation with democracy in 1960 ended two years later when a new constitution was drawn up under which the monarch exercised sole power.

Gyanendra's late brother Birendra in 1990 agreed to a new democratic constitution, and multi-party elections were held in 1991. But since then the country has had more than a dozen governments.

AFP