KP Sharma Oli has been reelected CPN-UML chairman through the party’s 11th general convention on Thursday.

Oli received 1,663 votes while his closest competitor Ishwar Pokhrel got 564 votes.

It will be Oli’s third term as the party’s chairman. A four-time prime minister, Oli was first elected party chief from the 9th general convention in Kathmandu and re-elected at the 10th in Sauraha.

The party’s statute convention held in September unanimously endorsed the proposal to remove the two-term limit and 70-year age bar to hold executive positions in the leadership, as decided by the party’s central committee meeting. The decision was made in favour of septuagenarian Oli, who eyed the third term.

Likewise, Shankar Pokharel has been reelected as the party’s general secretary for the second term. He received 1,228 votes. His competitor, Surendra Prasad Pandey from the Ishwar Pokhrel-led panel got 999 votes.

Likewise, four candidates from the Oli-led panel have been elected as vice-chairs. One candidate from Pokhrel’s camp also won the vice-chair position.

From Oli’s panel, Bishnu Paudel and Ram Bahadur Thapa have been re-elected as vice-chairs. Paudel secured 1,675 votes, while Thapa received 1,516. Former deputy general secretary Prithvi Subba Gurung won the vice-chair post with the highest number of 1,737 votes. Raghuji Pant was also elected vice chair with 1,258 votes.

Meanwhile, former secretary Gokarna Bista from the Pokhrel group was elected vice-chair with 1,368 votes.

Likewise, all nine candidates from the Oli-led panel were elected secretaries. Mahesh Basnet secured the highest number of votes among the nine secretaries.

According to the final results, Basnet received 1,544 votes. Padma Kumari Aryal finished second with 1,530 votes. Chhabilal Bishwakarma secured 1,506 votes, Sherdhan Rai 1,503, Hikmat Kumar Karki 1,337, Khagraj Adhikari 1,231, Yamlal Kandel 1,185, and Rajan Bhattarai 1,181 votes. Bhanubhakta Dhakal was also elected secretary with 1,108 votes.

Meanwhile, Lekhraj Bhatta, Raghubir Mahaseth and Yogesh Bhattarai have been elected as deputy general secretaries of the CPN-UML. Bhatta secured 1,452 votes, Mahaseth received 1,368, and Bhattarai won with 1,348 votes. Bhatta and Mahaseth were elected from Oli’s panel, while Bhattarai was elected from Ishwar Pokhrel’s panel.

Vote counting began on Thursday morning after gathering all 80 electronic voting machines, with representatives from both panels and the party’s central election commission members overseeing the process.

Polling began at 9:12am on Wednesday, continued overnight and ended early Thursday. A total of 2,227 delegates cast ballots, while 36 were absent.