Anhui Province Expands Merger of Party and Government Posts

Anhui provincial authorities have expanded an experimental merger of Communist Party and government township level posts to 17 counties throughout the province, according to an October 19 article in the 21st Century Business Herald. The experiment began in late 2004 in Xuancheng city. The reforms require the township Party secretary to serve concurrently as the head of the township government. Individual township reforms require lower level Party officials to hold other government positions. For example, one township's rules require deputy township Party secretaries to head both the local people's congress (LPC) and the discipline committee.

Local officials interviewed for the article say that the reforms seek to reduce overlapping responsibilities between Party and government officials, thus leading to a smaller overall number of officials. They also cite the need to cut township expenses after the elimination of the agricultural tax, which once was the principal source of local government revenue. In 2000, Anhui was the first province to engage in an experimental round of rural tax reform, and in 2004 it abolished the agricultural tax.

The reforms seem to be reducing the total number of officials and lessening the tax burden on local residents, but they also raise questions about the wisdom of concentrating so much power in the hands of a single Party official, according to the article. The absence of independent citizen political participation and electoral processes to check the power of local officials heightens the potential for abuse of power. The Democratic Governance and Legislative Reform section of the Commission's 2005 Annual Report discusses these systemic weaknesses in greater depth.

The Anhui reforms represent a model that central government authorities may be considering for implementation on a broader scale. Local officials note that the Anhui reforms are an effort to carry out the Party's September 2004 Decision on Strengthening the Party's Ruling Capacity, which in part instructs officials to expand the practice of dual Party-government appointments. As a result of the central government's recent effort to eliminate the agricultural tax nationwide, local officials in other provinces may also face budgetary pressure to adopt reforms similar to those in Anhui. The head of the State Development and Reform Commission noted that the government has eliminated the agricultural tax in all but three provinces, according to an August 26 Xinhua article.