The meeting entrusted party Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal, Madhav Kumar Nepal, KP Sharma Oli, Bamdev Gautam and Ishwar Pokharel with proposing nominees for the posts at the politburo meeting scheduled for Sunday.[break]
The party has 15 vacant positions for CC members. Six central-level leaders along with Vice-chairman Ashok Rai quit the party last year and later formed the Federal Socialist Party headed by Rai. Politburo member Ram Chandra Jha recently defected to the UCPN (Maoist). Ravindra Shrestha was expelled from the party as he eloped with a girl although he was already married, and went out of contact.
One more post fell vacant with the death of UML leader Dilli Bahadur Mahat.
Similarly, the party has a provision for nominating five percent of the 116-member central committee and these nominations were long overdue. As per this provision, six members are being nominated.
"The top five leaders are expected to prepare a list of nominees and present it at the next [Sunday´s] meeting," politburo member Prithivi Subba Gurung told Republica.
The top leaders have been given the responsibility, thinking that an understanding among them would help quell any dissatisfaction that may arise following the nominations because they command the major factional groups within the party.
A leader privy to developments said the leaders are likely to propose new members from the same ethnic communities the defectors had represented, so as to help court those communities.
Leaders from the ethnic communities quit the party in a group accusing the UML establishment of dilly-dallying over a federal policy.
While CPN-UML has endorsed a policy of delineating states based on common or multiple-ethnic identities, the dissident leaders lobbied for single-ethnic identity states.
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