Move to scupper village election cheats

By Hu Yinan and Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-01 08:33

China has unleashed new measures to clean up rural elections and deepen democratic procedures at a grassroots level.

A circular, jointly issued by the General Office of the State Council and the General Office of Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, aims to curb the bribery of village voters and officials, with 12 provinces -making up more than a third of the nation's administrative regions - set to go to the polls this year.

The document, released on Saturday, comes as "external uncertainties" surrounding the economy are on the rise and at a time when China can ill-afford instability in its vast countryside, said Civil Affairs Minister Li Xueju on the ministry website yesterday.

"Any improper handling of village elections may easily cause partial or complete instability in rural areas," he said.

The circular states: "The village committee elections are not properly conducted in some rural areas, where bribery is grave and seriously harms impartiality."

It also offers the first clear definition of election bribery, saying it is "any act by any candidate or their relatives to, directly or otherwise, alter or affect the constituents' own will by bribing them, election workers or other candidates with financial or other interests".

Village committee members have been selected through direct elections since 1988 when a historic law that promised self-management for millions took effect. They are the basis for governing rural affairs and the political foundation for the CPC.

The country has 604,000 village committees, involving more than 2.3 million rural citizens, and are "among the widest forms of socialist democracy in China", said Li.

Meanwhile, Premier Wen Jiabao has repeatedly said that maintaining social harmony and a high growth rate in rural areas is at the very core of the central government's goal this year.

But as the country has urbanized and migrant workers have flocked to the cities, village meetings, where the voting takes place, have descended into chaos. They were even suspended in areas where large parts of the population moved away for jobs, with authorities fearing polls were easily manipulated by gangs or individuals, either through bribery or violence.

Candidates seeking election to relatively small posts can spend millions of yuan on campaigns, while Li Changping, a former official and now a renowned researcher in rural issues, said: "There's only one thing that's certain, once they are sworn in they want plenty more back.

"Rural elections are China's grandest democratic experiment in 5,000 years, carried out amid rapid industrialization and urbanization that exploit countryside resources," he said. "Therefore, any problem that may surface from this process is perfectly normal, considering."

Poet Lin Changfa, a former migrant worker, added on Utopia, a popular website devoted to disenfranchised sections of the community that village chiefs have "a post smaller than a sesame seed, but a power greater than heaven".

Zhou Jianmin, a professor with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said regional differences play a major role when it comes to local elections.

"The competition in some rich areas is fierce, while no one wants to work in village committees in poor regions," he said. "While these villages develop, some heads make huge sums of money by turning farmland into commercial property."