because they are not paired....
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Lone pairs typically have the greater repulsion because lone pairs want to be as far apart from one another as possible, even more so than bonding pairs. This is because the lone pairs consist of free-moving electrons.
Chlorine (nucleus) has 1 lone pair and 3 polar-covalent bonding pairs (the shared pairs with O). Each oxygen (nucleus) has 3 lone pairs and 1 polar-covalent bonding pair (the shared pair with Cl)
bp-4,lp-1
The lone pair pushes bonding electron pairs away.
Consider: Number of bonding domains on the central atom Number of non-bonding electron pairs (lone pairs) on the central atom