The Nepalese monarchy, which has ruled the kingdom for almost 240 years, was effectively ended when the previously pro-monarchist Prime Minister said it was time to clear the way for a republic.

Just a year after street protests stripped King Gyanendra of power and authority, Girija Prasad Koirala, the octogenarian Prime Pinister, said the king's actions and words in the past few months had changed his mind about having a ceremonial king. What has incensed Mr. Koirala, and many members of the 330-seat interim Assembly, was a defiant proclamation from the palace on democracy day last month. The king, viewed by some older Nepalis as a divine incarnation, sought to defend the monarchy saying it was "in accordance with the people's aspirations'' and rebuked politicians intent on curbing his influence.

Mr. Koirala said a republic would not arrive immediately but it was on the agenda for the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, the polls for which have to be held by June. The king's image was already being removed from banknotes and his bank accounts were being investigated.

In comments to the Kathmandu Post, the Prime Minister made it clear that he no longer believed in an ornamental monarchy. "Giving space to the ceremonial king does not mean letting him create instability," he said. "Even if the king abdicates the throne now, it will create [a better] environment."

Mr. Koirala's comments will please the Maoists, who claim that "rightist, royal elements" were behind a recent wave of deadly ethnic unrest in the south. "He has been behind the violence. But [the king] will not easily surrender because he was inflaming the violence," Chandra Prasad Gajurel, a member of the Maoist central committee, told the Guardian recently.

"What [the king] has been trying to do is to stage a coup. There are elements in the army, he has his foreign friends especially in Washington who want [the palace] back. But the people will not pardon him."