Thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of the Nepali capital today in the biggest protest since King Gyanendra appointed a royalist prime minister last week.
The 5,000 protesters demanded King Gyanendra restore parliament that was disbanded last year or form a national unity government of nominees from the country's five main political parties.
The king last week named Mr Surya Bahadur Thapa to replace caretaker Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, also a staunch monarchist, who resigned after eight months of protests from opposition groups who called his appointment by the king illegal.
Nepal's main political parties had demanded the king name their candidate as Mr Chand's successor. The parties refused to join a cabinet headed by Mr Thapa, forcing him to form a six-member ministry from within his party this week.
The poor Himalayan country has been in turmoil since June 2001 when King Gyanendra's brother, the former King Birendra, and much of the royal family was shot dead by an intoxicated crown prince. The royal family in the world's only Hindu kingdom is generally revered and demonstrations against monarchs were almost unheard of until recently.
More than 7,200 people have been killed in a seven-year Maoist revolt, aimed to replace Nepal's constitutional monarchy with communist rule. More than 5,000 of those deaths have taken place in the past two years.
Mr Chand's government had held two rounds of peace talks with the Maoists after a surprise ceasefire in January. A third meeting has been delayed over demands by the rebels to restrict the army to the barracks and free its jailed leaders.