Western cities take up urban grassroots democracy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Western cities take up urban grassroots democracy

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Many ordinary folk regard the direct election of a neighborhood committee as just choosing a community management team, but government officials see it as a step forward in the country's political civilization.

The Chinese government began to promote direct elections of urban neighborhood committees in major western cities in the autumn.

Neighborhood committees are self-ruled organizations of urban residents. Statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs show that China had 85,000 neighborhood committees in over 660 cities with atotal of 390,000 members at the end of 2002.

A minimum of three residents are needed to nominate a candidate for elections, which are open to all residents with voting rights.

Huang Xiuying, 68, walked for more than an hour to a polling station in Xingqing district of Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, to vote in her first-ever official election.

However, district officials took three months to prepare for the elections.

Du Bolin, director of the civil affairs bureau of Xingqing district, said election rules and procedures were published in bulletins and banners in communities beforehand.

About 30 neighborhood meetings were held to keep residents informed about the election. Community workers also visited more than 500 families to solicit views on the election before candidates were finalized.

The election was stressful for the candidates. Their profiles were publicly displayed and they called on residents to hand out their resumes. They had also to make public speeches.

So when 34-year-old Zhu Huifeng finally won the election and became head of the Kanghua neighborhood committee, she said she felt as lucky as a lottery winner.

Though the principle of "direct elections" was made law as early as 1990, a pilot program was not launched until the late 1990s in a dozen major cities, most of which were located in economically-developed eastern areas.

The development of socialist democracy and political civilization was highlighted at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last year as a major objective of the Party's goal of building a well-off society.

Zhang Mingliang, head of community development in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the promotion of direct elections of neighborhood committees in western areas "greatly boosted" the construction of political civilization in China.

Though the country's western areas still have a long way to go to catch up with the east economically, Shi Weimin, a researcher of politics with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said it was "clearly possible" that the region could move in line with the east in the construction of grass roots democracy.

Grass roots democratic elections were closely tied to people's interests, Shi said.

Direct elections were promoted in rural areas long before they were launched in urban communities. As farmers had greater involvement in their economic interests, they chose village heads whom they hoped would be good managers and play a leading role in village development.

However, as urban citizens usually belonged to different organizations and companies, they shared few common economic interests. Instead, Shi said, they cared more about services provided by their neighborhood committees.

Chen Wenjiang, an associate professor of sociology at Lanzhou University in the capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, said western urban neighborhood committees had greater challenges than before as a result of economic and social development.

"Urban communities now have to deal with problems of unemployment, migrant workers and senior citizens, so residents vote for community 'managers' who can help solve these problems," Chen said.

Though neighborhood committee heads and members were not rankedhigh on the hierarchy of public service, they are still commonly known as "officials".

Shi Weimin said direct elections for minor positions would definitely play a significant role in raising public democratic awareness.

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