1 This paper was presented to the 17 th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of

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1 1 THE DIRECT ELECTIONS FOR TOWNSHIP PARTY HEADS IN CHINA 1 Zaijun Yuan PhD Candidate Chinese Studies Program The Faculty of Arts Monash University zyua4@student.monash.edu.au In the map of political reform drawn by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the CCP s self-reform (inner-party democracy) will be a quick and safe path to China s thorough democratization. In the inner-party democracy, the election reform forms the most important component. This paper researches eleven important election experiments. In the first part, the paper introduces the inner-party democracy. The second part explains what the traditional elections are like. The third part case studies eleven influential experimental elections. This aims to allow the local party election reform to be understood from an evidence-based viewpoint. Some research results are composed in the last part as the conclusions. Inner-Party Democracy In recent years, in contrast to its reluctance in carrying out people s democracy 2, the CCP theoretically prioritizes inner-party democracy. 1 This paper was presented to the 17 th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia in Melbourne 1-3 July It has been peer reviewed via a double blind referee process and appears on the Conference Proceedings Website by the permission of the author who retains copyright. This paper may be downloaded for fair use under the Copyright Act (1954), its later amendments and other relevant legislation.

2 2 Hu Jintao s report at the CCP s 17th National Congress (Hu Jintao 2007) and other propaganda articles in the party-controlled media indicate that the inner-party democracy the Central CCP blueprinted is actually some liberal reform measures the CCP will take to patch up the procedures of some of the party s political activities in a rather limited range. An article in The Study Times summarises four principles which the inner-party democracy reform will follow: (1) all party members enjoy equal political rights; (2) follow the principle of the minority being subordinate to the majority; (3) decentralize power and inspect power; (4) democratically elect leading groups. 3 Among these four dimensions in which the inner-party democracy is possibly carried out, the election reform is most primary. While the other three points focus on liberalising the process of utilizing the powers, the election section decides the source of the powers and how they are formed. In fact, the direct elections 4 for township party cadres are believed the most important inner-party democracy reform. Until the March of 2006, the open nomination and direct election for township party cadres had been held in two-hundred and seventeen townships of thirteen provinces (Li Yajie 2006). In 2008, the reform has been expanded to more than two thousand townships across China (Cai Xia 2008). Though the reform methods vary from place to place, the general model of the experimental elections is to allow self-nominating candidatures and allow all township party members to directly vote in one of the several rounds in the procedure. Traditional Elections The normal procedure of an institutionalized election for township party secretary usually involves three steps. Firstly, the township party members elect township party congress members (normally 100 to 200 hundred, no more than 300); secondly, township party congress members elect the township party committee members (5 to 2 Chinese political researchers normally use the term people s democracy to distinguish all other forms (outside-party) of democracy from the inner-party democracy. 3 The original article cannot be found. Some article contents are from chinanews.com. 4 According to the existing documents, the township party members direct voting happened in only one of the several rounds in the whole procedure. The word direct voting or direct election in the context of this paper refers to the one-round directness, it is different from the meaning of the genuine direct elections held in political democratic countries.

3 3 9 members); thirdly, party committee members elect township party secretary and vice secretaries (1 secretary and 1 or 2 vice secretaries). The township is the most primary level in the party s organization structure. However, it goes through three steps for the average party members to elect the party heads at this level. The poor quality of those institutionalized inner-party elections is obviously seen. Candidate nomination is another indicator of election s quality. In the traditional elections for township party secretaries, according to Article 16 of The Provisional Ordinance on the CCP s Primary Organizational and Electoral Work, candidates are nominated by the previous-tenure township committee and their candidatures should be examined and approved by the upper-level party committee (CCP 1990, 205). Obviously, only very few people such as members of the party committees at the township or above levels can nominate candidates. But in fact, it is a party discipline that the lower level must be subordinate to the higher level. In addition, power is normally centralized on the top leader in a party committee. In that case, the real nominating power is normally gripped by the upper-level party committee secretary. To summarize, in traditional methods, the elections for township party secretaries are normally controlled by one or several party heads in the upper-level party committees. The elections obviously lack the essential elements a true election must have: equality, representation and competition. Eleven most important experiments In this part, I will case study eleven election experiments which were held at various localities. These eleven cases were most heavily reported by Chinese official media. The two reasons I research these eleven experiments are: firstly, this group of experiments, though having various procedures in different cases, can represent the most advanced reform in the inner-party local elections. To conduct research on them possibly enables us to understand how deeply such reform has gone. Secondly, in the case of lacking field studies in the areas and lacking the first-hand data on the experiments, the large amount of news reports on the individual cases provide sufficient information for the research.

4 4 The following table indicates the time, localities and reform contents of the eleven cases: Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 Locality Time Reform area Lianhua Township, Dongchan Township, September to Shizhong District, November 1998 Suining City, Sichun Province Nancheng Township, Qingshen County, Meishan City, Sichuan Province Yangji Township, Jingshan County, Jingmen City, Hubei Province Pingba Township, Chengkou District, Chongqing Municipality Mulan Township, Xindu District, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province Nine townships of Pingchang County, Bazhong City, Sichuang Province Thirteen Townships of Muyang County, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province Longxin Township, Yubei District, Chongqing Municipality December 1998 August to September 2002 August 2003 November to December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 May to July 2004 party committee secretaries party committee secretaries, members and party disciplinary committee members executives and party committee secretaries executives and party committee secretaries; establishing standing committee of people s congress and party s congress at the township level party secretary party secretaries and party committee members party secretaries party secretaries Elections for chief Ten townships of Luxi township party cadres County, Honghe Yi and including secretaries, Ha ni Monority Case 9 July to August 2004 party committee Autonomous members and party Municipality, Yunnan disciplinary committee Province members Case Xiangshui Township, April to May 2005

5 5 10 Nanzheng County, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province Case 11 party secretaries Locality Time Reform area Yongxing Township, Chuanshan District, Suining City, Sichuan December 2005 Province party secretaries and party committee members The main procedures of those experiments are as follows. Step 1: Nomination The first procedural step of those experimental elections is Self-Nomination and Qualification-Check, which happened in cases 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11. In those elections, the election organizers (mainly the party committee of the upper-level) published the criteria for eligible candidates and allowed local people to nominate themselves. The organizers then assessed the qualifications of those self-nominated people by the previously published criteria and decided the list of those eligible candidates. The exceptions were in cases 3 and 9. In case 3, all local voters (including both party members and masses) nominated candidates, the three candidates who won most nominating votes entered the next round. In case 9, it was also both local party members and the masses who nominated the candidates but the nomination method was different from that of case 3. In case 9, the party members were organized in the unit of party branches to nominate candidates; outside the party, more than thirty nonparty member voters in agreement were able to nominate candidates. The criteria set in this step indicated the election organizers (the upper-level party committee) preference. They enabled the party to exclude those unfavourable from entering the elections. There are some common points in the criteria, which can be seen from the following table:

6 6 Age Case 1 < 45 Case 4 >25 and < 40 Case 5 < 45 Case 6 Case 7 None Data not obtained Case 8 < 45 Case 11 < 45 Education Background Tertiary Education Tertiary Education Tertiary Education Tertiary Education and at least 2 month training at party schools or (governmental) administration schools Data not obtained Tertiary Education Secondary Education Length of Party membership or Working Experience Working in government or a Party department for at least 5 years Data not obtained Be a party member for at least 3 years Be a party member for at least 3 years and at least 3 year working experience in government or a Party department Data not obtained Be a party member for at least 3 years At least 3 year working experience in government or a Party department Official Rank at least sub Kelevel 5 Data not obtained At least 3 years at sub Ke-level or currently holding a Kelevel position At least 2 years at sub Ke-level at least sub Kelevel been at sub Chu level for more than 2 years or currently holding a Chulevel position 6 At least 2 years at sub Ke-level or currently holding a Kelevel position 5 Ke-level is the primary level in the five-level cadre system in China. Each level has its sub level which is half level lower. Normally, township party secretaries are Ke-level cadres. According to the criteria for candidates, a qualified candidate must attain the sub Ke-level, which is half level lower than Ke-level and is the lowest level in China s cadre system. 6 In this election, the lowest rank qualified candidates must attain is the sub Chu level, which is onelevel higher than the normal requirement in other experimental elections. This is because the special status of Chongqing Municipality in China s administrative framework. Chongqing Municipality is a unit at the provincial level, which is one-level higher than normal cities. All government and party units subordinate to Chongqing Municipality are accordingly one-level higher than the units in other cities. Specifically, Longxin Township, Yubei District, Chongqing Municipality, the township where the election was held, is a Chu-level unit.

7 7 Notes: 1. Self-nomination and Qualification-check were not utilized in cases 3 and 9 so the selection criteria are not applicable to the two cases. 2. Data regarding the selection criteria in cases 2 and 10 can not be obtained from the existing documents. 3. Data in cases 4 and 7 are incomplete from the existing documents. 4. In cases 6 and 11, the elections were held to elect other township party heads besides the township party secretaries. The listed official rank criteria in the table were only applied to the selection of the candidates for the township party secretarial positions. 5. Some exemption situations were found in cases 6 and 11. In case 6, the incumbent township party heads were exempted from the requirements if they were competing for their current positions; in case 7, the village or urban resident community (the most primary-level urban citizens unit, similar to a village in rural area) party secretaries with outstanding working performance were exempted from those requirements in age, education and working experience. Step 2: Selection of final candidates The next step in the eleven cases was the selection of final candidates. I divide the methods into the following four categories: Election In cases 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, the final candidates were elected from those initial ones. However, the people who were allowed to vote in the elections varied in different cases. In case 3, all township party members voted to elect two final candidates from the three candidates. In case 4, according to the election method, the election for final candidates involves two steps: firstly, all township party congress delegates elect some candidates from the initial ones; 7 secondly, all registered voters (including both party-member voters and non-party voters) elect a number of final candidates from those candidates elected in the first step. 8 In case 4, after the step of self-nomination and qualification-check, the experiment was actually aborted and the remaining steps in the plan did not occur in practice. In case 5, two-hundred and twenty-two people, including all township party and government cadres, party secretaries and heads of the subordinate villages, heads of the villager groups (unit subordinate to village), entrepreneurs in the township, township party congress and people s congress members, and delegates from the democratic parties and non-party members, formed a conference to elect two final candidates from the eleven initial 7 The exact number can not be obtained from the existing documents. 8 The exact number can not be obtained from the existing documents.

8 8 ones. In case 6, the elections were held for township party secretary, vice secretaries and township party committee members. All township party members plus some nonparty member delegates whose population was no more than thirty percent of the total township party members voted to elect two final candidates from at least three initial candidates for one secretarial position; four final candidates from at least five initial candidates for two vice secretarial positions; and some candidates (population decided based on the vacancies) for committee members. 9 In case 8, altogether eighty five people including the district cadres who were responsible for organizing the election; all township party and government cadres; the heads and party secretaries of the subordinate villages; heads of the township government owned factories and schools; the members of township party congress, people s congress and people s consultative conference; the delegates from the democratic parties and non-party members voted to elect two final candidates from the eighteen initial ones. In case 9, a joint electoral conference was held to elect the final candidates (the numbers of the final candidates were normally one more than the vacant positions). 10 In case 10, two-hundred and ninety-one people including the township party and government cadres, village party secretaries and village heads, township party congress, people s congress and people s political consultative conference members voted to elect two final candidates for township party secretary and another two final candidates for township party vice secretaries from forty two initial candidates. The Party making decision In cases 2 and 7, it was the county (upper-level) party committee who decided the list of the final candidates. In case 2, the county party committee decided the final candidate list based on the pre-fixed ratio of vacant positions and final candidate number. In case 7, the selection involved two steps: firstly, the standing committee of the county party committee selected a certain number of candidates (three times by the vacancies, estimated forty five persons) from the sixty five initial ones. 11 The 9 In case 6, the elections were conducted in nine townships at the same time. The exact numbers of the voters in this step varied from townships. 10 As the elections for all township party heads were held in one-hundred and twenty-six townships at the same time, the exact numbers of the final candidates varied from townships. 11 In case 7, the reform was conducted in thirteen townships at the same time. The county party committee first selected averagely three candidates for each township and then put them forward to the inner-party evaluation which was conducted among a slightly wider range of participants in each township.

9 9 existing document shows that these candidates were selected based on the result of the county party committee s survey (The Beijing Youth Daily 3 February 2007). 12 The three candidates in each township needed to write working proposals and made campaign speeches in front of a group of people including the heads of the county party s disciplinary inspection department, the township cadres and the party member delegates. 13 This group of people then marked each candidate. The first two candidates with the highest marks entered the next step. Tests The method of written and oral tests were utilised to select final candidates in case 1. The initial candidates first took a written test and the first six candidates went into the oral test. In the oral test, the examiners were made up of the district party and government heads, the district people s congress and political consultative conference heads, the district party and governmental departments heads, the election panellists (mainly district cadres), township party and government cadres, village heads (must be party members) and delegates of average party members. After the oral test, the examiners voted to elect two final candidates from those six examinees. Evaluation and Election In case 11, the method for the selection of the final candidates was designed complicated. It generally involved two steps: evaluation and election. The evaluation contained two parts. In part one, the election officers made a public polling on each candidate in his/her current working unit. Only if a candidate won more than sixty percent approval votes, could he/she enter the next part. The number of the approval votes each candidate received was counted as ten-percent of the whole evaluation mark. In part two, the examiners were divided into four groups: group one consisted of the township party congress, people s congress, people s political consultative conference members and delegates from villages and communities (two delegates from each village or community); members in group two included party secretaries and heads from all villages and communities, party secretaries of the 12 The information of what kind of survey it is and how it was conducted cannot be obtained from the collected documents. 13 The exact proportion of each group is not obtained.

10 10 township government-owned enterprises. Group three members were incumbent township party secretaries and the previous township party secretaries. Group four was made up of the election officers, mainly the cadres from the district. The marks on candidates made by group one and two were respectively counted as twenty percent of a candidate s whole evaluation mark; the marks made by group three and four were respectively counted as twenty five percent of the whole evaluation mark. When the whole evaluation mark for each candidate came out, those candidates who were highly marked entered the next round. 14 In the following round of election, the twenty district (upper level) party committee members voted to elect two final candidates for the township party secretarial position from the four candidates who won out in the above-mentioned evaluation; and all township party members voted to elect six township party committee members from the eight winners of the evaluation round. In this step, it was common the candidates made campaign speeches, which was found in cases 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. In addition, some other reform methods were adopted: in cases 4, 7 and 10, the initial candidates were required to write and hand in their future work proposals. In case 4, they also needed to lodge asset statements. In cases 5, 8, 10 and 11, the initial candidates were organized to go to the townships to make a several day field study. Step 3: Final Selection The last step in the eleven cases was to select township party secretaries from the final candidates. While in cases 2, 6, 9, 10 and 11, other township party heads were also selected in the last step. In cases 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11, the elections were held, in which all township party members voted to elect the township party secretaries (and other township party heads in the cases mentioned in the above paragraph) from the final candidates. In cases 3 14 The elections in this case were for township party secretary as well as other township party heads. The candidates were divided into groups for different positions in the evaluation. The exact numbers of the winners in each group in the evaluation were not clear in the existing documents, but seemingly four candidates for the secretarial position and eight for the party committee members were successful in the evaluation.

11 11 and 7, it was the township party congress delegates who voted to elect the township party secretaries. In case 1, the standing committee of the district (upper-level) party committee decided one from the two final candidates to become the township party secretary. As mentioned above, other township party heads as well as the township party secretary were elected in the last step in cases 2, 6, 9, 10 and 11. In cases 2 and 9, the township party members voted in the unrelated elections for different positions. In case 11, the township party members elected the township party secretary from two candidates. The elected township party secretary was then authorised to appoint one from the six township party committee members 15 to be the township party vice secretary. In cases 6, 10, however, the procedures of the final elections were special. The final election involved a series of related rounds in which the township party secretaries and other township party heads were elected successively. In case 10, the voters elected the township party secretary from the two final candidates in the first round. Then the loser of the first round entered the second round to compete with the two candidates for the two vice party secretarial positions. In the second round, the voters elected two vice party secretaries from the three candidates. In case 6, there was a similar procedure but the election involved three rounds. In the first-round voting, all party members voted to elect one township party secretary, the losers entered the second round. In the second-round voting, all party members voted to elect the vice secretaries, the losers entered the third round voting for party committee members. In the third-round voting, all party members elected the committee members from the remaining candidates. The party secretary and vice secretaries elected in the first and second rounds, according to the election policy, automatically became party committee members. They and the committee members whom are elected in the third round formed the township party committee. Different from case 10, all final candidates were able to compete for the party secretarial position in case 6, which made the reform more open and liberal. 15 These six township party committee members were elected by all township party members from the eight candidates who won out in the previous evaluation round. Refer to the last paragraph on page 9 and the 2 nd paragraph on page 10 for detailed information.

12 12 The methods adopted in this final election step in cases 6 and 10, especially the method in case 10, was highly rated by some party theorists as an improvement in inner-party elections. The formality of the institutionalized inner-party elections is normally from lower to higher positions. 16 In such a system, along with the elections from lower to higher positions, the range of voters is getting smaller and smaller. The traditional multi-step indirect election system greatly reduces the effectiveness of the average party members participation in deciding the party heads and other innerparty issues of that locality. Compared with this institutionalized electoral method, the party theorists believed the electoral method in the final election of case 6 was more democratic because it enabled all township party members to directly elect township party heads from the higher to lower positions in three subsequent voting rounds. Analysis and conclusion The following are the analysis results. Firstly, compared with the traditional elections for township party secretaries, the procedure of those experimental elections are more open and liberal. The average party members of the experimental localities can participate more in the elections. In some elections, one procedural step was open for ordinary party members to directly elect the township party heads. The step in which township party member direct elections for local heads can be found in some of the above experiments such as cases 2, 3, 4 (not in practice as the experiment failed), 5, 6, 8, 9,10 and 11. In the final election of case 6, the reversed order of the electoral procedure looks more scientific and expands average party members participation in deciding who would occupy the township party head positions. However, based on the analysis, we find each of these experiments has major flaws that reduce the directness of the elections and reduce the opportunities for a true representation of average party members. In the process of every experiment, there is at least one stage where the power holders play a dominant role and the normal party member voters are excluded. This stage is critical in the whole process to decide the 16 Please see the last paragraph on page 2 for details.

13 13 final candidate list. For example, the final candidate list was decided by the county party committee in case 2; two were selected from eleven candidates in case 5; final candidates (only one more than vacant positions) were selected from the initial candidates in case 6; the final candidate list was decided by the county party standing committee in case 7; two were selected from eighteen candidates in case 8; five were selected from sixty one candidates in case 9; four were selected from forty two candidates in case 10; in case 11, final candidates were decided by the evaluation and then two were selected from four by the district party committee. In practice, one or more step(s) under control existed in nearly all experiments to enable the power holders inside the local party committees to change the election result to meet their desires by controlling these critical steps. This can also be proved from a reversed side by viewing the failed experiment in case 4. When the upper-level party committee found the remaining rounds in case 4 were designed too liberal, they roughly aborted the experiment rather than letting it get out of control. Secondly, in some of those cases such as 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11, some non-ccp people could participate in one step (normally a step in which final candidates were elected). In cases 6 and 9, there was even a requirement for a minimum proportion of the non-ccp members in all voters in that procedural step (thirty and twenty percent respectively). However, the existing documents show that those non-ccp people who could vote in one step in those elections were obviously local elites, including the people s congress or people s political consultative conference members, village or village group heads, government-owned enterprise heads and government owned school heads. On the other hand, these non-party people who could participate in the elections were appointed by the county-level party committees, which were normally the election organizers. Considering these facts, it is doubted whether those non-party delegates whom were selected by the upper-level party committees can fully represent the vast majority of mass voters living in the localities. Thirdly, the adoption of the open-nomination or self-nomination methods made the candidate nomination section more open and liberal compared with the party nominating candidates method which was normally adopted in traditional elections. However, some criteria for eligibility, such as having received tertiary education and having been at ke-level for at least two years excluded most of the average party

14 14 members (being party members but not working in government or party departments) from becoming candidates 17. Even for the eligible party or government cadres, taking part in this kind of local and partial reform (if he/she was not the upper-level party committee preferred candidate) was unsafe. No matter whether he/she succeeded or failed in the election, the fact that he/she once challenged the partypreferred candidates in such elections may possibly endanger his/her future political career. Fourthly, in the step of direct election, some non-cadre party members 18 could not go to vote because they were working outside as migrant workers. In some of the above cases, according to the method, the election result was valid only if the amount of voting party members reached a certain proportion of all registered township party members, for example, in cases 6 and 9, the voters number were required to reach eighty percent of all registered township voters. However, it was difficult to carry it out in the elections which were held in the areas where migrant labourers are largely moving out. In contrast, those party members who were working as professional cadres in local party or government took advantage of voting in their working localities. They were actually the members of the bureaucratic system. The guaranteed participation of them and the absence of the migrant party members (members out of the bureaucratic system) enable the party to strengthen its control on the direct voting round. In conclusion, although some stages of the reformed elections were open to more average party members or even a small group of party-preferred mass voters, the direct elections for township party heads are not democratic nor are they completely direct. 17 In the article 4 of The Party Constitution, to stand for election is a right each party member enjoys (CCP 2002). 18 The non-cadre party members here refer to those mass party members who were not taking posts in the party or government departments.

15 15 Bibliography Cai, Xia Inner-party democracy: research and questions. Retrieved March 18, 2008, from The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central CCP: The provisional ordinance on CCP s primary organizational and electoral work, in The procedure of the Party s local and primary organizational and electoral work, ed. Chun Qiu: Beijing: The CCP s History Publishing House The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) The 16th CCP s national congress: Party constitution. Retrieved April 19, 2007, from Hu, Jintao 2007 Hold High the Great Banner of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Strive for New Victories in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in all Respects--Report to the Seventeenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Retrieved December 21, 2007, from Li, Yajie The officer of the Central CCP's leading team of 'advanced party education' answering journalists' questions at press conference. Retrieved June 16, 2007, from Yu, Jindong Differential quota elections for township party secretaries at Muyang County, Jiangsu Province. The Beijing Youth Daily February 3, 2007.