With the
‘household contract responsibility system’ introduced in the Chinese
countryside in the late 1970s, farmers began to produce for their families. As
production was decentralized, the collective-oriented organization of the
People’s Communes became outdated.
The
earliest villagers’ committees (VCs) emerged in the Guangxi Autonomous Region
in 1980–1. Formed without the knowledge of the local authorities, these
organizations were created by village elders, former cadres and
community-minded villagers. The intention was to address a decline in social
order and a broader political crisis as production brigades and teams stopped
functioning at the grass-roots level. Within months, local officials had
reported this development to the central government. The National People’s
Congress (NPC) leaders encouraged experiments with this new form of
organization.
In 1982,
VCs were written into the constitution as elected mass organizations of self-government
(article 111). In contrast to the relationship between the commune and
production brigade or production team, the newly restored township—the lowest
level of government—does not lead the VC but only exercises guidance over it.
Another difference is the introduction of direct election by all eligible
voters. In 1987, the Provisional Organic Law of Villagers’ Committees was
passed, setting out general principles for direct elections to VCs and defining
the tasks and responsibilities of the VCs. Implementation of the law, including
the enactment of detailed regulations, was left to the provincial and
lower-level authorities. The quality of elections and overall implementation
varied considerably, and after ten years perhaps only 25 per cent of the more
than 658,000 villages (for the end of 2002) in China had experienced direct
elections in full accordance with the law.
In 1998,
the NPC made the Organic Law permanent. The law has clarified and improved some
aspects of the prescribed election procedures and strengthened the rules on
transparency and popular control of VCs. The permanent law is seen by many as a
political and legal consolidation of the village election process, but its full
implementation remains a challenge—perhaps even more so after the introduction
of more demanding standards, for instance, in relation to secret polling booths
and the direct nomination of candidates. The quality of elections across the
country still varies considerably.
The VC
members are elected for three years, with no limit on the number of terms for
which a person can be re-elected. The VCs usually consist of between three and
seven members, one of whom is chair and one or two vice-chairs. Although there
is variation from province to province, VCs generally oversee all the
administrative matters of a village, including budget management, public
utilities, dispute resolution, public safety, social order and security, health
issues and local business management. A large village can consist of more than
10,000 people, while small ones might only have several hundred. The ‘average
village’ has 1,000–2,000 inhabitants.
VCs report
to the Village Assembly or the Village Representative Assembly. As the former
meet only once or twice a year, the latter, composed of 25–50 people from the
village and selected by Villagers’ Small Groups, play a greater role in
decision making and in the supervision of the VCs. A Village Election Committee
administers village elections.
Village
elections have now been held in all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and
municipalities. By 2003, the provinces of Fujian
and Liaoning,
two front-runners in this regard, had completed eight and seven elections,
respectively, and 19 provinces had held between four and six elections. At least
one province held its first village elections as late as 2000. There is no
single election day for all VC elections across the country. During a
province’s designated election year, the counties and townships within the
province together decide the election days for the villages within their
jurisdictions.
Each
election adheres to the same basic framework. The first step in the process is
the registration of voters, which is handled by the Village Election Committee.
A list of registered voters must be prepared and publicly displayed 20 days
prior to the election. Voters are allowed to challenge the registration lists.
Except for
those who have been deprived of political rights, all those aged 18 or above
enjoy the right to vote and to be elected without regard to ethnicity, race,
sex, profession, family background, religious belief, level of education,
property or period of residence in the community. One important challenge is
the large number of voters whose residence registrations are in their ‘home
village’, but who live and work a long distance away, often in a major urban
area. It is difficult or impossible for most such voters to get back to their
village on election day. At the same time, they cannot attend the elections in
the cities in which they work and reside. Therefore they cannot actually
exercise their right to vote.
Following
voter registration, candidates are nominated directly by villagers. In most
provinces, the requirement is to have only one more candidate than there are
seats to be filled as chair, deputy chair, and ordinary members. In recent
years, nominations in some provinces have been organized through villagers
attending either a meeting of the Village Assembly or a meeting of the
Villagers’ Small Group, while the latest development in other provinces is to
have no pre-election nomination. In these areas, voters receive either a blank
piece of paper or a blank ballot paper with only the different positions
indicated above the relevant columns. If the election fails to produce a new
committee or to fill all positions it de facto becomes a first-round election,
and a run-off election follows.
The final
election must be direct. The use of secret ballots and polling booths (or
rooms) is mandatory in most provinces. There are three voting styles: (a) mass
voting, where all voters go to a central voting place in the morning, vote, and
remain there until the end of the count; (b) individual voting throughout the
course of the day of the election; and (c) proxy or absentee voting, or ‘roving
boxes’. Most of the provinces use mass voting. The ballot papers used contain
names of candidates listed under the post for which they are standing; and the
voting is done by the voter marking the names of the candidates he or she
wishes to elect. The voter can mark as many candidates as there are posts (one
chair, one or two vice-chairs, and a number of committee members) in the
village. For an election to be considered valid an absolute majority of
eligible voters must cast their ballots and winning candidates are required to
get 50 per cent of the vote plus one. When no candidate receives a majority, a
run-off election is held within three days. In run-off elections, candidates
are only required to receive 33 per cent of all votes cast. Winners take up
their positions immediately.
Village
elections are important in that the election law mandates the basic norms of a
democratic process—secret ballot, direct election and multiple candidates (even
though their numbers are very restricted). Other elections in China have yet to implement these
norms. The progress made in relation to VC elections has raised expectations as
to whether and when direct elections will work their way up from the village to
the township, county, and even higher levels of government. Each round of VC
elections also strengthens local capacity to administer electoral processes.
An
assessment of the significance of China’s village elections has much
to do with the question whether such ‘limited democracy’ can lead to genuine
democracy. There are different ways of assessing how democratic elections are.
The three universal criteria of free, fair and meaningful elections are
appropriate terms of reference. China
does not meet any recognized standards of free and fair elections in choosing
its national parliament and local councils, and in many cases elected village
leaders do not exercise as much authority as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
secretaries do. However, just because the village elections are not fully free
or fair, and some VCs do not command complete authority, it cannot be concluded
that they are completely unfree, unfair, or meaningless. Elections should not
be evaluated against some absolute standard but rather viewed as positioned on
a democratic continuum.
The VC elections
have produced a ripple effect as village CCP branch elections in some cases
have invited ordinary villagers to cast a vote of confidence, and some
experiments with elections of township government leaders have taken place. China’s
democratization now appears to require that the top leadership’s political
decisions find an echo at the grass roots. After two decades of continuously
improved direct elections at the village level, elections at higher levels of
government appear technically feasible; the question is whether and how there
will be further change in the direction of democratization.
