Chairman KP Sharma Oli nominated Nepal and Neupane as the office bearers of the party’s supreme body and elected unanimously. With two new appointments the UML Standing Committee now has 17 members.

The July general convention had elected Oli as the new party chief. He was in the UML leadership race against Nepal, the party’s former general secretary and prime minister.

The UML had named Bam Dev Gautam, Bidhya Bhandari, Yubaraj Gyawali, Bhim Rawal and Asta Laxmi Shakya the party’s vice-chairpersons. Ishwor Pokharel, Bishnu Poudel and Ghanshyam Bhusal were appointed to the post of general secretary. Similarly, Pradeep Gyawali, Gokarna Bista, Yogesh Bhattarai, Prithivi Subba Gurung and Bhim Acharya were designated as secretaries.

The party, however, could not pick the candidates for Politburo as planned.

Oli and Nepal, who have been mandated to form Standing Committee and Politburo through consensus, could not pick consensual Politburo candidates.

There could be an election for Politburo members if the two leaders could not arrive at consensus. A source said that negotiation will continue until Sunday afternoon .

Secretary Prithivi Subba Gurung said the Oli and Nepal were trying to come up with consensual Politburo candidates. He added that a few more faces could be inducted in the Standing Committee to make it more inclusive.

Formation of Standing Committee and Politburo in UML was stalled for a long time because of dispute between Chairman Oli and senior leader Nepal. Nepal had accused Oli of distorting the provision in the party’s statute so that the first time Central Committee members, too, could contest for Politburo seats.

The statute endorsed by the UML general convention required that, to qualify as a Politburo candidate, one should spend at least one full term in the party’s Central Committee.

The dispute was finally resolved after Oli agreed on the criteria for Politburo candidacy as mentioned in the party’s statute.