China Youth Daily: Cai Dingjian Thinks the PRC Elections Law Still has Room for Improvement (story in Chinese)

Cai Dingjian, former member of the Secretariat of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, argues that further revisions to the most recent draft of the PRC Elections Law will be needed to make elections fair, open and competitive.

1. Candidates must not be appointed, but must put their own names forward.

2. Voters must be registered to vote according to the district in which they reside. For this reason, laborers from outside should not have the right to vote in the district they work in, unless they have lived there for a long period of time and become local tax payers.

3. Voting districts should not be divided according to the voter's work unit, or danwei, as this tends to encourage bosses to try to control their employees' voting behavior.

4. The system should require candidates to introduce themselves and publicly express their views so the voters can come to know them. This also will help develop the candidates' sense of duty to the people.