Kathmandu, Mar 11: More than 4,000 candidates are to contest a key Nepal election that will choose an assembly to draft the country’s new constitution and ratify the parliament’s decision to abolish monarchy, officials said Tuesday.

The election, set for April 10, will choose a constituent assembly, a key component of the peace deal between the government and the Maoists that ended a decade-long communist insurgency.

We have received nominations from 4,021 candidates for the 240 seats that will be contested through direct election,’ the Nepalese Election Commission said. ‘Of the total figure, 373 candidates are women.’

Nepalese will also vote for parties on the same day to choose the remaining 335 members of the assembly through proportional representation.

Nepal’s largest parties - Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress party, the Communist Party of NepAl Maoist coalition and the splinter Communist Party of NepAl Unified Marxist Leninist alliance - have fielded candidates in all 240 constituencies.

The election commission said it would mobilise high-ranking government employees to monitor the polls across the Himalayan nation. In addition, about 100,000 election monitors and observers from 148 local and 10 international organisations have sought permission to monitor the elections, the election commission said. The voting will be the first in Nepal since 1997 when the last general election was held. In 2002 then prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba dissolved parliament and announced elections in October of that year following differences within his Nepali Congress party over the continuation of the imposition of the state of emergency to deal with the Maoist insurgency.

However, major political parties asked Deuba to postpone the election citing growing violence and insecurity which prompted King Gyanendra to sack the government and install a new interim government.

The Maoists finally came into the mainstream after a mass movement toppled King Gyanendra’s government in April 2006.