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Rectitude deposit handed to curb corruption
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-06-07 10:50

Pan Xingsheng, a new directly elected village head in Xinchang County, Zhejiang Province, handed in 2,000 yuan (US$240) to his village committee as "earnest money." It will not be refunded if he violates the "village decrees" during his three-year term.

Pan is only one among more than 100 village heads elected this year in the county. They have all paid earnest money to their respective village committees. The practice started last year, when the county began to popularize village decrees.

"The earnest money will be a reminder for me to keep calm when I make decisions on village affairs," Pan said.

Named after Shici village for which Pan is serving, village decrees were praised by political experts as the embryo of autonomy. Adopted by a popular referendum at Shici Village in June 2004, the rules are being carried out in one-third of the 400 villages in Xinchang.

Embracing 26 articles in six chapters, the Shici Village Decrees cover village setup, responsibilities of village committee members, meetings and decision-making, accounting, transparency, punishment for rule violations and breach of duty.

Pu Zhijiang, a senior official in charge of organizational work at the Xinchang committee of the Chinese Communist Party, said the idea is making an impact.

"Village decrees have helped shift grassroots rural governance from authoritarian rule to institutional arrangements," Pan said.

In the past there were no rules about decision-making, management or supervision. Village heads, though elected democratically, in some cases did what they wanted.

One of the direct results from the absence of regulations and supervision was rampant corruption. Many cases have been documented around the country.

But village democracy is incomplete with mere elections, politics experts said.

Chen Suijun, associate professor with the research center of agricultural modernization and rural development at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, said village autonomy is a sort of political regime. He said democratic elections should be integrated with democratic decision-making, management and supervision.

In many rural areas elections are the only democratic process.

The Shici village decrees may initiate a trend, Chen added.

Similar rural democratic institutional arrangements are also being implemented on a trial basis in other parts of the country.



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