Limited Political Reforms in Zhejiang County Encounter Local Opposition

Villages in Wuyi county, Zhejiang province, have implemented limited political reforms establishing citizen supervisory committees for village affairs, according to a Southern Weekend report. Although a positive development, both the restricted nature of these reforms and local government resistance to them are likely to constrain their effectiveness.

Under the system, elected members of "Village Affairs Supervision Committees" have the right to attend all village government and Party meetings (except working Party committee meetings), participate in the annual evaluation of Party officials, and sign and approve village financial decisions. Township and county Party officials have supported the reforms (which originated as a local experiment in one village) and in April expanded their application to all 558 villages within the county. Party officials note that the committees help assure local political stability by checking financial improprieties of local officials and thereby reducing villager petitions to higher authorities.

However, existing measures remain highly limited. Supervision committees are themselves supervised by the local Party committee. While the supervisory committee may request the impeachment of village officials, these decisions must first be approved by the village Party secretary. Supervision committee members acknowledge that they are reliant on the support of village and township Party officials to operate.

Despite their restricted nature, even these reforms have encountered resistance from local government and Party officials. According to the article, one of the principal committee members from the initial village to experiment with the supervision committees was forced out of office and hounded out of the village by his political opponents. Some local officials have sought to block wider implementation of the system by interfering with supervision committee election procedures and weakening the ability of supervision committees to review local budgets.