Flags fly in Tiananmen Square after a plenary session of the National People's Congress in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

 

Over 900 million voters are expected to directly elect more than 2.5 million local legislators in grass-roots elections beginning 2016, said China's top legislator in an annual work report on Wednesday.

"This will be a major political event in China, and an important step in the development of socialist democracy," Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), told the National People's Congress Standing Committee in Beijing, the Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

China's grass-roots elections of local people's congresses at the county and township levels - which are held every five years - will be conducted starting 2016, Zhang said.

"Adhering to the Party's leadership, we will fully promote democracy, follow procedures in strict accordance with the law, and strengthen guidance and monitoring of the election work in order to ensure that elections are held honestly and election results meet public expectations," Zhang said.

In China, representatives to local people's congresses at the county and township levels are elected directly and constitute over 90 percent of legislators at all levels nationwide, while representatives to a people's congress above the county level will be elected from the people's congress at a lower level. 

The elected grass-roots representatives "act as capillaries for a two-way exchange of information between the Chinese people and their government," said an article published in The Diplomat on March 1.

Patrik K. Meyer, author of the article and a scholar at the Department of Arabic Language & Literature at Peking University, regards China's elections as "a capillary democracy," which "allows information to flow from the most remote village to the highest levels of the government."

However, the government faces various challenges when it comes to elections.

In February, the Party's top disciplinary watchdog warned against "non-organizational activities in elections" including bribery in Party, governmental and legislative elections at all levels. Party members that do not follow the rules may be removed from public office or even expelled from the Party, it warned.

The Party has been making efforts to "ensure the seriousness, justice and fairness of elections and to avoid electoral manipulation," Zhuang Deshui, deputy director of the Research Center for Government Integrity-Building at Peking University told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Election fraud is a major problem the Party is striving to curb as the elections have a direct impact on the outcome of the campaign to enhance discipline, Zhuang said.

In 2013, Central China's Hunan Province saw one of the country's largest election fraud cases, where 56 provincial legislators offered over 110 million ($16.9 million) yuan in bribes to 518 city lawmakers and 68 staff members. As a result, 512 delegates of the people's congress in Hengyang, Hunan Province were forced to resign.

Improved supervision

Despite an election supervision mechanism, supervision of grass-roots elections still needs to be improved, He Junzhi, deputy director of the Center for Electoral and People's Congress System Studies, Fudan University, told the Global Times.

"The institutions responsible for organizing the elections are temporary mechanisms rather than permanent ones," He said, noting that "the supervisory objects are indeterminate."

"A rational management mechanism for elections" should be established, He stressed.

Considering cross-provincial migration and the current household registration system, registration of voters technically poses a challenge for election organizers, He noted.

According to current regulations, a person can register to be a voter either where they work or at their primary residence, but the conditions are not specified when and where the two registration patterns are applicable, he said.

"More competition should be introduced to the election system," said Dang Guoying, a research fellow of rural development at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noting that "competition is the best way to supervise."

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