Voting to elect the new leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal–Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) was completed at Bhrikutimandap after taking 22 hours.
According to the Election Commission, 2,227 votes were cast out of a total of 2,263 eligible voters, marking a turnout of 98.04 percent. Thirty-six delegates were absent from the voting process.
Voting began at 9:00 am on Wednesday and concluded at 7:00 am on Thursday. The contest for the party chairperson is between KP Sharma Oli and Ishwar Pokhrel, while Shankar Pokhrel and Surendra Prasad Pandey are competing for the post of general secretary.
For the five vice-chairperson posts, 11 candidates are in the race. Six candidates are contesting for three deputy general secretary positions, and 20 leaders are competing for nine secretary posts. Candidates for secretary include Gokul Baskota, Mahesh Basnet, Padma Aryal, Khagaraj Adhikari, Agni Kharel, among others.
The vote counting process has already begun. The Election Commission plans to start counting from 8:00 am and aims to make the results public by 10:30 am.
The UML has scheduled the announcement of results, certificate distribution, and oath-taking ceremony at Bhrikutimandap itself.
The party’s national convention was inaugurated on Mangsir 27 in Sallaghari, Bhaktapur, and has been running as a closed session at Bhrikutimandap since Mangsir 28. After multiple schedule changes, voting was finally completed on Poush 2.
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