KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) Nepal's oldest political party won the most seats in the first set of results from last week's election ahead of two prominent communist parties, the country's election commission said Monday.
The results showed that the Nepali Congress Party had won 105 of the 240 directly elected
seats. The Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) trailed with 91 seats and the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has 26 seats. Counting for the 240 directly elected seats was completed on Monday.
The Election Commission said counting of the second sets of ballots where voters pick a political party had also started. Those 335 seats will be divided among the 122 competing political parties according to the proportion of the total vote each gets.
The election for Nepal's Constituent Assembly was held Nov. 19 and final results are expected by the end of the week.
The Maoists, a party made up of former communist rebels, has withdrawn from the ballot counting after initial results showed them losing most of the seats. That was a big drop from the last elections in 2008, when they won the largest number of seats.
