News

Democratic reforms bring improvements

By Dachong and Peng Yining (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-07-21 08:24

Lhasa - In the 1960s, Tibetan farmers and herdsmen voted for their village head by putting peas in a bowl put behind each candidate's back.

"The earliest democracy in Tibet was quiet simple and crude, but it was a big step forward as for the first time the former serfs and slaves were able to enjoy rights as their own masters," Qiangba Puncog, head of the standing committee of the Tibet autonomous region's people's congress, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

According to Qiangba Puncog, since the peaceful liberation of the autonomous region in 1951, the development of a socialistic democratic political system has created a great process.

"It has been very difficult to develop democracy in an economically backward and geographically inconvenient region like Tibet," he said. "But the surging tide of democratic reform took only a few years to overthrow the feudal serfdom system which had existed in Tibet for centuries."

Now, to collect all the ballot, Qiangba Puncog said many village officials, riding horses or automobiles, visit every household with ballot boxes.

In 1961, a general election was held in Tibet. In August 1965, the election at the level of township and county was completed. There were 1,359 towns and counties that conducted elections, and 567 towns and counties held peoples' congresses. The people's democratic organs at county level were established in 92 percent of the region, with the majority of participants being liberated serfs and slaves, according to official reports.

Qiangba Puncog said that in 2007, more than 96 percent of residents with voting rights participated in the electoral process for the people's congresses at autonomous regional, prefectural, county and township levels, and in some places the voting rate was 100 percent.

Currently, he said, of the 34,000 deputies of the people's congress of various levels in Tibet, more than 94 percent were members of the Tibetan or other ethnic minorities. Of the deputies to the current National People's Congress, 20 are from Tibet, including 12 Tibetans, one Monba and one Lhoba.

Since 1965, the heads of the standing committee of the people's congress and chairmen of the people's government of the Tibet autonomous region have all been Tibetans.

Meanwhile, Tibetans and other ethnic people make up 78 percent of the staff of government departments at the autonomous regional, prefectural and county levels.

"When I was young, elders in my family told me that in old Tibet, serfs and slaves were so poor that they had nothing but shadows of their bodies," said Qiangba Puncog, who was born in Tibet's Qamdo prefecture in 1947. "Now Tibetan people cherish their rights which enable them to become citizens and directly elect their village head."

Other than the right to vote, Qiangba Puncog said Tibet's democratic reform enabled people to make their own regulations.

Statistics show that since 1965 the standing committee of the people's congress of the Tibet autonomous region has enacted 280 local regulations.

In order to respect the local tradition, the legal age for marriage in Tibet is 18 years old for female and 20 years old for male - two years younger than that for Han Chinese, said Qiangba Puncog. Tibetan language is required to be taught in schools as well as Chinese language.

Meanwhile, law-related education has been widely promoted in Tibet.

"People, including secular residents and lamas, should know, respect and obey the law," he said. "The government fully respects and protects the religious tradition in Tibet, and lamas or other religious figures should fulfill their duty to obey the law."

He said the 14th Dalai Lama, who created the "Tibetan government-in-exile", has not done anything good for Tibetans since he fled to India in 1959, and is blamed for fomenting the March 14 bloody riot in 2008 in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet autonomous region, leaving at least 18 people dead and 400 injured.

"Over the past 60 years, Tibetan people's livelihood has been greatly improved," he said. "The Dalai Lama's retirement or death will not affect Tibet."

According to official reports, per-capita net income reached 4,138 yuan ($641) by 2010, and the average lifespan of people in Tibet has increased from 35.5 years before liberation to 67 years now.

"A foreign political leader once told me that he was impressed by hundreds of pilgrims chanting scriptures in the front of the Potala Palace, and said he didn't know Tibet has such freedom of religion," Qiangba Puncog said.