Nepalnews.com, news from Nepal as it happens

Voting to elect new UML leadership concludes; vote counting to begin soon

The voting for the CPN (UML)'s new leadership at the party's ongoing eighth general convention concluded at 10 pm on Sunday.

Although the counting of votes was scheduled to start at 8 am this morning, it has not started yet. The election results are expected to be announced by late afternoon.

Out of 1820 delegates at the convention, 1790 cast their votes to elect some 115 Central Committee members and office bearers from 377 candidates.

The voting process took a long time due to the complications in the ballot paper. Counting of votes last evening was postponed for the same reason.

Earlier, 459 candidates had filed their nominations. It reduced to 377 after 82 candidates including Subodh Pyakurel-candidate for the post of chairman-and Surendra Pande-candidate for the post of secretary-withdrew their nominations.

A fierce competition is expected between the immediate past general secretary Jhala Nath Khanal and senior party leader KP Sharma Oli for the post of chairman.

Although other leaders filed their nominations independently, most of them are contesting as part of the Khanal or Oli camp.

Bamdev Gautam and Sahana Pradhan from Khanal camp and Ashok Rai, Bidhya Bhandari and Bhim Rawal from Oli camp are contesting for vice-chairman. Another vice-chairman candidate Bharat Mohan Adhikari is supported by both camps.

For general secretary Ishwar Pokhrel from Khanal camp and Pradip Poudel from Oli camp are contesting.

Four candidates have been elected unopposed as Central Committee members. Netra Panthi and Urba Dutta Panta have been elected unopposed from Lumbini and Mahakali zones respectively. Lalit Kumar Basnet has been elected full member and Chuda Mani Jungali has been elected alternate member from the reserved quota for peasants.

This is the first time UML leadership is going to be selected by an election. The party had a history of selecting leadership by consensus till its seventh general convention. nepalnews.com ta Feb 23 09