Learning poll lessons

Even a minor deviation is likely to turn a good thing into a bad one. This is certainly no exception with the direct election of a rural village committee.

Bribery in direct election, which has been on the rise, constitutes such a deviation, which turns the widely acclaimed form of grassroots democratic autonomy into a nightmare in some villages.

Of the more than 611,000 villages, elections involving bribery make up about 1 to 3 percent, according to statistics provided by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. But they have an impact on the healthy development of this form of democracy.

What makes the matter more complicated is the fact that it is difficult to define whether an election is really marred by bribery. And so is it to get villagers as witness to accuse their neighbors of committing such an offense and identify the culprit.

A draft amendment to the law on rural elections that has already been submitted to the State Council is meant to narrow the scope for string-pulling in the elections.

Even with some bribery cases in elections, such a form of grassroots democracy represents the best way for villagers to manage their own affairs.

The problems are just the teething troubles, which can never be avoided. With complicated kinship or even clans in some villages, an election of a village committee head is likely to be swayed in favor of a particular group of villagers. And such an election can hardly be deemed as one rigged by bribery.

But villagers know for sure that a village committee headed by a good director is in their best interest. As long as the election is managed exactly in line with the requirements specified by the relevant law, most villagers know whom they should cast their votes for in their best interest.

The amendment stipulates that a particular place must be provided for villagers to write their votes in privacy. In this way, most villagers will be guaranteed the right to cast their votes according to their own will rather than being swayed by other factors.

Continuous progress in rural village committee elections will have a far-reaching impact on the overall democratic advancement in the country. Among other things, improved management of rural elections will set an example for the election of neighborhood committees in urban areas.

With only 22 percent of neighborhood committees being directly elected by residents involved, the percentage is expected to expand to 50 by 2010.

(China Daily 08/05/2008 page8)