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 BHAKTAPUR, Nepal (AP) - He's known as Prachanda — "the fierce one" — and after a decade leading a communist insurgency from the shadows, he's taken center stage in Nepal's election campaign.
With his wrinkled suits and stainless steel watch, he looks more like a middle-class trader than a former rebel. But in Nepalese cities and towns, the faithful are welcoming him like a rock star as others watch warily, wondering what to make of their would-be leader.
And Prachanda is obliging, raising his fist in a communist salute and railing against Nepal's king and the "stale wisdom" of the country's clubby political elite in front of an ever-present banner that declares: "Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Prachandaism."
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