The politburo meeting was deferred as the top leaders failed to propose names for nomination as central committee members.[break]
Leaders couldn´t finalize the names even after they held two rounds of standing committee meetings on Sunday after deferring the politburo.
Party vice-chairman Bamdev Gautam said they couldn´t finalize the list as there were more aspirants than the number of vacant positions.
“The politburo had earlier instructed the standing committee to come up with a unanimous list. But we haven´t yet been able to prepare such a list,” said Gautam. He said it is taking time as they are trying to forge consensus at the standing committee.
“We have narrowed down the list and we will finalize the names during tomorrow´s meeting,” UML Secretary Bishnu Paudel told Republica.
According to him, they are planning to call the next politburo meeting in the first week of May.
A politburo meeting on April 17 had entrusted the party´s top five leaders with preparing a list of 15 candidates for nomination as central committee members and other top posts.
The leaders are also to recommend names for other vacant top posts such as party vice-chairperson and politburo members.
The meeting had entrusted Chairman Jhalanath Khanal, Madhav Kumar Nepal, KP Sharma Oli, Bamdev Gautam and Ishwar Pokharel with proposing candidates for the posts.
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 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 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 of nominating five percent of the 116 central committee members and these nominations were long overdue. As per this provision, six members have to be nominated.
“Leaders may opt to defer nominations if they fail to agree on names because each of the top leaders has a separate set of their favorite members,” said a leader.
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.
Sources privy to the developments said the leaders are likely to propose new members from the same ethnic communities the defectors had represented.
Leaders from the ethnic communities had quit the party en masse accusing the UML establishment of dilly-dallying on its policy on federalism.
While CPN-UML has endorsed the policy of delineating states based on common or multiple-ethnic identities, dissident leaders lobbied for states based on single-ethnic identity.
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