Voting to elect the new leadership of the CPN-UML will begin on Tuesday evening, later than initially scheduled, due to delays in preparing electronic voting machines at the party’s 11th national convention.

The party’s central election commission said polling, which was earlier expected to start in the afternoon, was postponed to allow time for coding and technical adjustments of the machines.

Election commission chair Bijaya Subba said that 80 electronic voting machines will be used, although 100 were brought to the venue. A total of 2,262 delegates are eligible to vote in the convention.

Each delegate is expected to take at least 25 to 30 minutes to cast their vote, as ballots must be marked for all contested candidates except those elected unopposed.

The commission said 11 candidates have already been elected unopposed, meaning each delegate will need to vote for at least 292 candidates.

With only 80 delegates able to vote at a time and each round taking around 25 minutes, the entire voting process is expected to take at least 10 to 11 hours.

Election commission member Bharat Pokhrel said polling would require a minimum of 10 hours, suggesting the voting and counting process could continue late into the night.