How does the Chinese Communist Party govern the country?

Chapter 27

Democratic elections are an important part of village self-government.Regarding this issue, the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees (Trial Implementation) passed in 1987 was relatively succinct. It only stated that the members of villagers' committees should be "directly elected by villagers," and there were no specific requirements on how to be "directly elected."Therefore, in practice, Chinese peasants once again displayed their creativity, not only introducing campaigns into village committee elections, but also creating a "sea election" model.

After the implementation of household production contracting, the income of farmers in Lishu County, Jilin Province has increased year by year, and production has gradually improved.However, as the reform of the rural economic system continues to deepen, there have also been problems such as the inability to implement family planning, farmers’ reluctance to turn in and withdraw funds, and no one responsible for rural public welfare undertakings. Some villagers even openly confronted and retaliated against village cadres.However, the villagers reflect that the village cadres use their power for personal gain, eat and drink greedy, and overbearing, and the number of complaints and visits has increased year by year.In response to the new situation and new problems, the CPC Lishu County Committee, the County People's Congress and the County People's Government conducted in-depth investigations and studies, and found that the crux of the problem is that although village committees have been established in rural areas, village cadres are still appointed or appointed by the township. Therefore, village cadres only need to be responsible to their superiors and not to farmers.

The Lishu County Party Committee and the county government decided to adjust the team of the village committee through direct democratic elections by villagers. In October 1986, Lishu County established the "Leading Group for the Pilot Project of Rectification and Supplementary Lessons by the Village Committee".

From December 12th to 5th, the pilot team of the village committee to rectify supplementary lessons came to Beilaohao Village, Lishu Township, to carry out a pilot program of democratic election of village committee cadres for supplementary lessons.The Beilaohao Village Committee was appointed by the Lishu Township Party Committee this year, but the masses were very dissatisfied with the disunity within this team.

After the pilot group for rectifying supplementary lessons came to Beilaohao Village, through publicity and mobilization, it was decided to organize the report of the original village cadres and the villagers' evaluation, and then hold the election.Some old party members and old village cadres in the village suggested that the township party committee should no longer appoint and appoint village committee cadres for this rectification, and the villagers should be allowed to choose by themselves.The pilot group for rectifying supplementary lessons adopted the opinions of the masses and decided to elect villagers' representatives first, one representative for every 10 households or so, and 46 villagers' representatives for the whole village.At the same time, a village election leading group participated by members of the village party branch and villagers' representatives was established.Then, a village representative meeting was held, and the issue of how to generate village committee cadres was submitted to the village representative meeting for discussion.As a result, "the representatives agreed unanimously to let go of their hands, to rectify, and enthusiastically brought their opinions to the villagers' groups to solicit villagers' opinions, and what the masses said we should do. The villagers agreed not to draw frames and set the tone, Feel free to nominate and recommend.”

On the evening of December 12, 23 villager groups in Beilaohao Village conducted the pre-selection of village committee members at the same time.The pre-selection only gave each voter a blank sheet of paper, and the voters filled in the candidates they thought they were satisfied with. As a result, a total of 11 people were selected. On the 13th, Beilaohao Village held a village representative meeting to conduct a second round of secret ballots. From the 25 people, the top 13 were determined as official candidates for the village committee members according to the number of votes they received.That night, the villagers' representatives conducted a third round of secret ballots with positions, and elected new villagers' committee members.

Although the election method of "sea election" had its initial form in the village committee election of Beilaohao Village, Lishu County, Jilin Province in 1986, it was formed and named from 1991 to 1992. The second village committee election in Lishu County this year.

In December 1991, Lishu County deployed the second general election of village committees throughout the county, and on December 12, the Lishu County Party Committee Office and the County Government Office jointly issued the "Lishu County Village Committee General Election Work Plan" ", stipulated that the election of village committee members must reflect the principle of direct democratic elections, and emphasized the need to prevent the phenomenon of "leaders make a list and villagers draw a circle"; Those who are supported by the villagers are elected to the village committee.

According to the requirements of the county party committee and the county government, the villages and towns in Lishu began to hold general elections for the village committees from mid-December of this year.

Ping'an Village in Shuanghe Township of the county is an election pilot village determined by the township, and the election of the village committee will begin on December 12. January 26, 1992 was the day when the village nominated candidates according to the regulations of the township’s “Election Work Plan”. Wang Xiliang, the company commander of the Zhonghe village soldiers, expressed their intention to participate in the election for the director of the village committee.All of a sudden, four people demanded to run for election, which exceeded the requirement that there should be one more candidate for village committee director than candidate for election in Lishu County's Work Plan for General Election of Villagers' Committees.Under such circumstances, the secretary of the village party branch who presides over the election proposed that the candidates should not be mentioned in the pre-selection, and the villagers should be elected directly.This idea was approved by the deputy head of the township sent to guide the election, and was approved by the village representative meeting, and then reported to the Lishu County Committee of the Communist Party of China through the Shuanghe Township Party Committee, and was approved by the county committee.

On January 1, Ping An Village held preliminary elections.All 3 voters in the village participated in the voting.

As a result of the counting of the votes, a total of 81 people were nominated as candidates.After discussion, the village representative meeting decided to select the top 11 voters Wang Xiliang and others as the candidates for the village committee members according to the number of votes.

Then there is an election to select the official candidates for the village committee director, deputy director, and committee members. This time, there are only positions on the ballot, and there are no candidates. There are 11 candidates for director and deputy director, and 3 candidates for committee members.As a result of the election, 3 official candidates for village director and deputy director were determined according to the number of votes received. They were Chen Zhong (3 votes), Chen Yongxi (518 votes) and Wang Xiliang (413 votes).One of the three candidates who is short-listed will be the official candidate for the committee, plus the three committee candidates determined according to the number of votes received, there will be four official candidates for the committee, which meets the requirements of the differential election.

On January 1, the third round of elections was held, and 6 of the 3 candidates for village chief and deputy director were selected. The names of the 2 candidates were printed on the ballot paper, but each voter could only choose 3 of them.The result of the election was 2 votes for Chen Zhong, 790 votes for Chen Yongxi, and 631 votes for Wang Xiliang.Wang Xiliang, who had fewer votes, lost the election. As an official candidate, he joined the election of the village committee members together with the other three people.So the fourth round of elections was held, and 212 members of the village committee were elected from among the 3 formal candidates.In this way, a new village committee of Ping'an Village was formed consisting of five members.

Farmers in Ping'an Village adopted such an election method only to elect members of the village committee. Naturally, they would not have thought that this was a revolution in the election of the village committee.Therefore, after the election, whether in the village or in the township, there was no timely summary of this election, let alone publicize it to the outside world.The way farmers in Ping'an Village elected the village committee was later summarized as the "sea election" model, which originated from a foreign reporter's visit to Lishu.

In November 1992, Frank Gibney, a Beijing-based reporter for the American "Newsweek", wanted to investigate the situation of village self-government in China, and Lishu County was selected as one of his investigation sites.The county naturally attaches great importance to American journalists coming to Lishu to investigate the situation of village self-government.Fei Yuncheng, member of the Standing Committee of the County Party Committee and deputy county magistrate in charge of villagers' self-government work, went to Ping'an Village to discuss with township and village cadres how to introduce election experience to foreign friends before the American journalists came.Chen Yongxi, director of the village committee, reported: "We elect the village committee here. We don't draw a frame, don't set the tone, and look for a needle in a haystack. Whoever gets it counts." Fei Yuncheng said: "Then we call ' Hail' it!"

Chen Zhong, the deputy director of the village committee, said: "'Hailao', the name doesn't sound good. Hailao is like fishing in the river. It doesn't sound good." want to say:

"Don't call it 'sea fishing', let's call it 'sea election'!" The word "sea election" was born from this.

From the end of November to the beginning of December of this year, Frank Gibney, accompanied by officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, came to Lishu. The county introduced the situation of the "audition" in Ping'an Village to him.Later, Frank wrote his experience in Lishu into an article "Breaking New Ground in the Rural Areas", which was published in "News Weekly" on February 11, 12.

Lishu's "audition" has aroused great repercussions across the country after being reported by the media.In the general election of village committees from 1995 to 1996, quite a few areas have adopted the "sea election" method. The 1998 Village Committee Organic Law clearly stipulates: "The director, deputy director and members of the village committee shall be directly elected by the villagers. No organization or individual may designate, appoint or remove members of the village committee." The method of "sea selection" has been legally confirmation.

Currently, 29 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country have enacted measures for the implementation of the Organic Law of Village Committees, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have enacted local laws and regulations on village committee elections, and some places have formulated village affairs disclosure regulations. work regulations.More than 95% of the country's rural village committees have implemented direct elections according to law, and the vast majority of rural areas have held more than seven general elections for village committees.In elections, speeches for job contests and village governance are widely practiced, and the method of setting up secret ballot writing offices, "secret ballots and public counting" is widely adopted, and the content of grassroots democratic political construction is constantly enriched.

(End of this chapter)