Government and Policy

Special teams on ground to ensure fair elections 

By Yan Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-16 07:28

BEIJING - The Party's top member-managing and discipline-inspecting departments have jointly sent supervisory teams to 14 provinces and autonomous regions to ensure there is no misconduct during the local leadership reshuffles as officials at various levels finish their five-year terms.

The teams, comprising officials from the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection, will supervise, examine and instruct those involved in local elections and leadership reshuffles in the provinces and autonomous regions of Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Tibet and Xinjiang, according to a statement by the Organization Department on Sunday.

Throughout the year, local governments will select new leading officials at the village, township, county, city and province level.

The teams will be available by telephone and the Internet to receive tip-offs.

Misconduct during the selections is not rare on the part of officials at various administrative levels, according to Chinese media reports.

Zhang Bingsheng, the former mayor of Taiyuan, the capital of North China's Shanxi province, was removed from his post and reprimanded by the Party for directing his secretary to disrupt voting with text messages in January, the Organization Department said in early April.

Zhang was said to have been unhappy at not having been selected as a candidate for position of deputy governor of Shanxi province.

In Central China's Hunan province, a township official surnamed Yan was stripped of his Party membership for bribing five representatives in a bid to get elected as deputy governor of the township in December 2010, according to the statement.

In addition, the central government will introduce new measures this year to enhance the regulation of city-level officials - such as Party secretaries and city mayors - according to the latest issue of Outlook weekly magazine.

The new moves will come in the wake of discussions held by the Party's Central Political Bureau in late March about how to reinforce the regulation of city-level leading officials in cities, regions, prefectures and leagues.The changes will add to the central government's efforts to better regulate local officials, experts said.

In 2010, the country introduced 20 rules to improve the fostering of Party secretaries of counties that fall under the control of cities.

"The city level plays a transitional role and is a middle layer in the work of the Party and the country," said Ye Duchu, a professor with the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC.

China has a total of 333 cities, regions, prefectures and leagues, said Ye. City-level leaders are usually involved with complicated issues concerning the adjustment, allocation and balance of interests, he added.