Local Legislative Election Cycle for 2006-2007 Begins Under Strict Party Controls

The government has begun the 2006-2007 round of county and township elections for local people's congresses (LPCs) while maintaining strict Communist Party control over the process and candidates. Officials will hold elections for about 35,400 township LPCs and 2,800 county LPCs between July 1, 2006, and December 31, 2007, according to a July 27 Legal Daily article.

Government authorities use detentions and regulatory controls to harass and block independent candidates who wish to compete in the LPC elections. Public security officials took into custody Yao Lifa and five other independent LPC candidates in Xiantao, Hubei province after they met for lunch on July 27 to discuss their election campaigns and plans to distribute leaflets to voters on electoral fraud, according to South China Morning Post (subscription required) and AsiaNews articles dated the same day. Security officials accused them of holding an illegal gathering and later released them. Yao served as an independent LPC delegate in Qianjiang city, Hubei province, from 1999 to 2005, but lost his seat in what he claims was a rigged election. He has continued to compete in local elections and has attempted to advise farmers on how to run lawful campaigns. Yao said that "[t]he [LPC] elections remain under the tight control of authorities, which [have] restricted the media to using only Xinhua in coverage of the polls," according to the AsiaNews article.

Shenzhen housing rights activist Zou Tao said that a local election official informed him he has no chance of winning a local LPC seat, according to a August 9 Ming Pao article. Zou said that authorities have already chosen the heads of the district government, a local street committee, and the district branch of the All-China Women's Federation to fill 3 out of the 12 LPC seats in his district in advance of the election. Zou, a Communist Party member, is attempting to obtain nomination as an independent candidate. Chinese law permits citizens to seek nomination as an independent candidate if they obtain the signatures of 10 voters and receive the approval of the local election committee. Zou has received 500 signatures, but says that the local election committee is likely to deny his effort to register as an independent candidate because he has been publicly active in challenging government policies. He also said that a local election official told him that because of social stability concerns, candidates who refuse to submit themselves to official controls will not be elected, no matter how much support they enjoy among the public at large.

Local government officials have eliminated proposed amendments to local regulations that would have allowed LPC candidates more flexibility to engage in independent election activities. In May, Guangdong provincial LPC officials submitted proposed amendments to the implementation details for Guangdong LPC elections, according to a May 30 Guangzhou Daily article (in Chinese) reprinted on the Xinhua Web site. News media reports note that the draft contained language that might have allowed LPC candidates to engage in "self-promotional" activities. But Guangdong provincial LPC officials announced on July 29 that the draft had been resubmitted for consideration with the proposed changes removed, according to a Legal Daily article dated the same day. Li Mengyu, Deputy Director of the Guangdong Legal Affairs Committee, said that applicable law did not clearly provide for "self-promotional" activities by candidates, that current conditions did not permit such activities, and that permitting them might lead to unspecified negative consequences. The 2004 Amendments to the Organic Election Law for the National People's Congress and Local People's Congresses allow Party-controlled election committees to organize events for LPC candidates to meet the voters and respond to their questions, but do not provide for candidates to promote themselves independently.

The amended draft amendments to the implementation details for Guangdong LPC elections also impose additional burdens on migrants seeking to exercise their right to vote in LPC elections. The original draft permitted migrants who had temporarily or permanently moved to Guangdong from their place of hukou (household) registration to vote in Guangdong LPC elections, provided that they first obtained proof of voter eligibility from voter registration officials in their place of hukou registration. The new draft provides that "individuals temporarily working or residing at a place other than the place of their hukou registration should return to their place of hukou registration to register as voters and participate in elections." News media accounts of the new draft regulations do not say whether or not the government has provided voting rights to migrants who have moved permanently to a place other than that of their hukou registration, but who lack a local hukou in their new city of residence. Governments in many urban areas impose strict economic criteria that prevent rural migrants from obtaining local hukou in their new city of residence, regardless of how long they have resided there.

For more information on the Chinese hukou system, see the Commission's topic paper on the subject, the chart of various national and provincial hukou reforms through the end of 2004 on the Freedom of Residence page of the Commission's Web site, the Commission's 2004 and 2005 Annual Reports, and the Commission's roundtable on hukou reform. For more information on government controls over local Chinese legislative elections, see Section V(d), on Democratic Governance and Legislative Reform, of the Commission's 2005 Annual Report.