UML should be ready to give equal executive powers to both co-chairs until GC

Kathmandu, April 18

Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli has assured CPN-Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal that the chairperson of the unified party would be chosen through consensus and not on the basis of voting in the general convention.

Dahal, who wants to chair the unified party, is not confident that he would be chosen the party chair because he suspected that Oli had also assured senior UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal that he would be the party chair.

A member of the PM’s Secretariat said Dahal would be the chairperson of the unified party after its general convention, as Oli had reached understanding with Dahal on the issue.  “There will be no voting in the general convention. Dahal will become the chairperson on the basis of consensus,” he added.

Left alliance sources said Dahal was skeptical of Oli’s intention because even though the PM had assured Dahal in private that he would lead the party after the GC, Oli had not discussed the issue during formal talks.

Left alliance task force led by senior CPN-MC leader Ram Bahadur Thapa has proposed that the

general convention of the party should be held within two years.

“There is no going back on unification of the two parties, as voters have already endorsed the two parties’ efforts to unify,” the source at the PM’s Secretariat said.

Oli and Dahal, who are likely to meet tomorrow, have agreed to co-chair the unified party until its general convention. However, Dahal has sought equal powers as co-chair of the unified party.

CPN-MC leader Agni Sapkota, a close confidante of Dahal, said UML should be ready to give equal executive powers to both co-chairs - Oli and Dahal — until the general convention.

He added that a written commitment on power-sharing would ensure that posts of the PM and the CPN-MC chair would be shared by Oli and Dahal in turn.

Another source said Dahal wanted to run the party when Oli was the prime minister.

According to Sapkota, if the two parties intensified their discussion unification could happen on May 5 to coincide with the birth anniversary of late German philosopher and communist leader Karl Marx.

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