The vote on Thursday was a key plank of a peace deal with the Maoists to elect an assembly that will rewrite the constitution and is likely to abolish its 240-year-old besieged Hindu monarchy.

Despite fears polling would ignite violence, only sporadic incidents took place in a country recovering from a decade of civil war that left 13,000 dead.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon congratulated Nepal on the vote, which he said “took place in a generally orderly and peaceful atmosphere.”

“Nepal stuns world, itself,” read a banner headline in the English-language daily The Kathmandu Post.

“The Nepali people have once more proved doomsayers wrong,” said the Nepali Times.

Still, at least 60 of the 21,000 polling stations will need to vote again, the Election Commission said late Friday.

“The number of re-polling stations will increase as we are still investigating the complaints received from our local election officers,” commission spokesman Laxman Bhattarai told reporters.

Some villages reported their ballot boxes had been seized Friday en route to local headquarters for counting.

“Around 19 ballot boxes of several villages were torched and destroyed by the Maoists and Nepali Congress supporters,” district official Drona Pokhrel told AFP from Dhading district, 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kathmandu.

But in spite of clashes, shootings and bombings in the weeks leading up to the polls, just 33 polling stations were forced to shut on voting day, the Election Commission said.

“This represents an historic achievement and is a tribute to the courage of the Nepali people and the conduct of the Election Commission,” a U.S. embassy statement said.

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