KATHMANDU, May 29: Nepal basked in its rebirth as a republic on Thursday, lowering the royal flag at Kathmandu’s main palace a day after the 239-year-old monarchy was abolished and the king given two weeks to leave the royal compound.

The monarchy’s end came on Wednesday in a late-night vote by Nepal’s newly elected Constituent Assembly. It was the culmination of a two-year peace process that saw Nepal’s communist rebels transformed from feared insurgents into the country’s dominant political force.

“Turning Nepal into a republic is the biggest achievement of the people in the history of this country,’’ wrote Prateek Pradhan, the editor of the Kathmandu Post.

There were some scattered gatherings across Kathmandu, and a few hundred people gathered outside the pink concrete palace, chanting ‘Gyanendra is a thief, leave the country!’ They briefly clashed with police when they tried to march on the palace gates, and officers used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Hours earlier, one of the final symbols of the monarchy disappeared as the royal flag, a red square decorated with a flag-waving lion, was removed and replaced later at the palace by Nepal’s national flag, a red banner of two triangles adorned with a sun and moon.

The removal of the royal standard was ‘a decision by the government to show that Nepal is now a republic,’ said a palace official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of palace rules.

There was no immediate reaction to the abolition of his throne from the dour 61-year-old former monarch, who remained silent in recent months as it became apparent that his days as king were numbered.

In every significant way, his throne had become meaningless in the two years since widespread protests against his royal dictatorship forced him to restore democracy.—AP