Taking a cue from their mistakes on the face of the first phase of local polls, major parties are working for an early finalisation of their candidates for the second round of vote. The Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre) have saidthat they would finalise candidates much before the June 16 deadline.

The major parties suffered setbacks as their poll alliances fell by wayside due to some last-hour finalisation of candidates for the May 14 elections. The NC-Maoist Centre alliance and UML-RPP alliance failed to yeild positive results in the first phase of polls due to late nomination of candidates.

The NC and the UML had fixed their mayoral candidates for Kathmandu Metropolitan City on the nomination day—May 2.

The main opposition UML, which emerged as the largest party in the first phase of local polls, is expected to finalise all its candidates on Saturday for four provinces where second phase election will take place on June 28, while the CPN (Maoist Centre) is likely to take a few more days before picking its candidates.

With a large number of aspirants, the Congress has not completed the selection of candidates.

However, Arjun Narsingh KC, a member of candidates selection panel in the party, said that the NC would finalise its candidates in a day or two as most of the candidates for local levels except Province 2 had already been selected. “We will complete the candidates selection of Banke, Kapilvastu, Dang and Bardiya by Friday,” said KC.

The UML is preparing to finalise the candidates of metropolis and sub-metropolis in provinces 1 and 2 at party’s standing committee meeting on Saturday, according to UML politburo member Krishna Gopal Shrestha. “We have already finalised the candidates of all other provinces,” he confirmed.

The Maoist Centre has also picked candidates for most of the local units except in Province 2. The party has allowed the ward committees to recommend the ward representatives which would be finalised by municipal committees with the consent of district committees, while the cheifs and deputy cheifs would be recommended by the respective municipal committees and finalised by province committees after being endorsed by the district committees.