Kathmandu April 3

Left alliance constituents — the CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist Centre — have decided to make a formal announcement of their unification on April 22, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin and the day when the Nepal Communist Party was established.

A meeting of the Party Unification Coordination Committee held today at Baluwatar took a decision to this effect on the recommendation of the two left alliance task forces, according to senior UML leader and PUCC member Jhalanath Khanal.

“We have decided to announce unification of the two parties on April 22,” Khanal told The Himalayan Times after the meeting. “Any pending technical issue will be sorted out by the PUCC by then. The PUCC will meet again on Thursday.”

Prime Minister and UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and CPN-MC Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal have received reports from the task forces, but there are some controversial issues that are yet to be settled such as phrase ‘people’s war’ and the election symbol.

According to sources, Oli and Dahal will settle the pending issues, including the percentage of representation in the committees of the unified party, among other controversial things.

UML leaders have opposed insertion of the word ‘people’s war’ in the preamble of the unified party’s statute and they want to retain ‘sun’ as their election symbol. The CPN-MC has proposed that the election symbol of the unified party should be sun with the sickle and hammer symbol.

The taskforce reached understanding that the unified party would be named ‘Nepal Communist Party’ and will have 10 layers of committees, including office bearers, standing committee, politburo, central committee, provincial committees, district committees, metropolitan, sub-metropolitan, municipal and rural municipal, ward and preliminary committees.

Oli and Dahal will be co-chairs of the unified party, and they will take turns to chair the meetings, while the secretariat will support them in the daily activities of the unified party.

According to one of the task forces headed by Senior CPN-MC leader and Minister for Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa, which has been assigned to finalise organisational structure and statute of the new party, executive committees will be formed all at levels — provincial, metropolitan, sub-metropolitan, municipal and rural municipal, ward and preliminary — each of which will have chairperson and secretaries.

The unified party’s central committee will have five-year tenure, provincial committee four years, district committees three years, local committees two years and preliminary one year.

The task force has recommended 299 members in the central committee, and 33 members in the standing committee.

The other task force led by senior UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, which has been assigned to finalise the common political document, has recommended inclusion of the ‘contribution of Mao, people’s war and people’s movement’ in the common document.

The left alliance has already agreed that the guiding principle of the unified party will be Marxism and Leninism. UML’s people’s multiparty democracy and CPN-MC’s people’s democracy in 21st century and Maoism will be settled by the general convention of the unified party, which will be held in two years.

The left alliance had allocated 60:40 ratio of candidates between the UML and the CPN-MC and this produced 70:30 per cent results for these parties respectively. The two parties had announced the left alliance on October 3.