BHAKTAPUR, Nepal—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."

Nepal, long known as a Himalayan haven for hash-smoking hippies and mountain climbers, is gearing up for its first election since King Gyanendra was stripped of his powers after weeks of protests nearly two years ago. The Maoists, as the former rebels are known, then gave up their fight for a communist state, a 10-year struggle that left about 13,000 people dead.

For Nepal's 27 million people, it is a time like no other -- and not just because Prachanda, once the most-wanted man in the country, is bounding up and down stages telling crowds he's going to be the next president of Nepal, a job that doesn't currently exist.

Nepal's monarchy is likely to be abolished after the election, a vote many hope will bring lasting peace and economic revival to this grindingly poor land that often more closely resembles medieval Europe than a modern state.

Dozens of parties, from the Maoists to centrist democrats to old-school royalists, are competing for seats in a Constituent Assembly that will govern Nepal and rewrite the constitution.

But Prachanda and his Maoists are the wild card -- they have 20,000 ex-fighters camped across the country with their weapons stored in locked, but easily accessible containers under a U.N.-monitored peace deal.

It's a situation that gives the former rebels more power than their untested popular support would indicate, and it would be easy for them to go back to the bush if they don't like the election results.

Prachanda sought to assuage such fears Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press in Katmandu, the capital.

"We will respect the verdict of the masses," said the 54-year-old, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

"Even if we cannot win the election ... this peace process will go ahead. It will not be disrupted."

Still, he predicted: "We will win the election."

Most observers doubt that -- they see the Maoists placing second or third behind Nepal's traditional electoral powers, the centrist Nepali Congress or the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).Continued...