Kathmandu (AsiaNews/Agencies) – More than 10,000 people took to the streets on May Day to call on the King to restore democracy.

In the capital the marchers carried placards and shouted slogans, but the police prevented them from reaching downtown, an area declared off-limits to demonstrations.

On April 30, King Gyanendra ended the state of emergency but remains sole rulers, having suspended parliament.

He had proclaimed the state of emergency on February, declaring that "14 years of democracy had led to widespread corruption and allowed a Maoist rebellion that has cost more than 11,000 lives to spread unchallenged."

The move was widely criticised at home and abroad.

The King Gyanendra ended the state of emergency after visiting China, Indonesia and Singapore, where United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and many Asian leaders urged to restore democracy.

The Nepalese monarch remains very sensitive to UN demands given his people's dependency on UN food aid.

Never the less, parliament is still suspended and hundreds of political opponents arrested in the last few months are in jail.

Cellphones are banned and the press is censored

In the meantime, Prachanda, leader of the Maoist rebels, admitted a split in the top rebel leadership. He said his second-in-command, Baburam Bhattarai, was engaged in "groupism and divisive activities within the party".

Various sources indicate that Bhattarai was expelled from the Maoist party for criticising its politics of violence and guerrilla warfare it carried out in the last few years.