Jagamaya Shrestha lights a candle at a ceremony in Mt Albert to celebrate Nepal becoming a republic. Photo / Martin Sykes
It's Queen's Birthday - but Auckland's Nepalese community gathered to celebrate the end of their monarchy.
Nepal became the world's newest republic last Thursday after the country's new constitutional assembly voted to abolish the 240-year-old monarchy and establish a republic.
At a community gathering last night, the secretary
of the New Zealand Nepal Society, Giri Kattel, proclaimed: "The Nepalese people have achieved our ultimate goal, and it is a time for all to celebrate.
"On this day when New Zealand celebrates Queen's Birthday, we celebrate the end of the Nepalese monarchy and the birth of Nepal as a republic," he said.
The country's unpopular king, Gyanendra, ascended the throne in 2001 after most members of the royal family were slain in the palace by the Crown Prince, Dipendra, who had been forbidden from marrying the woman he loved.
He apparently turned the gun on himself after killing the royals.
Many conspiracy theories linked King Gyanendra to the killings, and his unpopularity deepened when he sacked the government and embarked on autocratic rule in 2005.
When the result of the vote to end the monarchy was announced last week, thousands in Nepal marched, danced and sang in the streets of Kathmandu, setting off firecrackers, denouncing King Gyanendra as a thief and waving hammer-and-sickle flags.
Last night, about 100 members of Auckland's Nepalese community gathered at Ferndale House in Mt Albert carrying lanterns and lighting candles to mark "a bright new future for Nepal". Nigya Pokhrel, 11, a student at Rangeview Intermediate who moved to New Zealand with her parents seven years ago, had heard many "terrible stories" about Nepal's royals from her parents and was glad to see "the end of them".
"But even though they're gone, there is no way I am going back there to live," she said.
"New Zealand is still way better because it is a safer country and there's no snakes."
