China Holds First Direct Elections at Township Level

February 3, 2000

First Direct Election Conducted at Township Level
Buyun Township, Sichuan Province

In 1987, China formally initiated direct election of leaders at the village level. Since 1994, the International Republican Institute (IRI) has observed over fifty village committee elections throughout China and has provided technical election-related assistance to national and grassroots election officials. IRI has prepared and submitted numerous reports and recommendations on election procedures to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is charged with overseeing and implementing village elections. The reports have outlined suggestions for improving the technical quality of the elections, including the use of the secret ballots, secret ballot booths, and the immediate transfer of power.

Village committee elections are the only direct elections in China currently permitted by national law. Township government elections, which are overseen by the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature, are indirect elections in which only deputies to local People's Congresses participate. On December 31, 1998, Chinese reformers organized the first direct election of a township government in Buyun Township, Sichuan Province. According to recent information received by IRI from the organizers of the election, IRI reports and recommendations were influential in the development of election regulations and guidelines for the historic election.

Background

As China's central government balanced economic concerns against civil unrest in the countryside late last year, local government officials in Sichuan Province secretly planned and carried out the country's first direct elections at the township level. Motivated by the removal of the previous township leader in 1997 on charges of mismanagement and corruption and inspired by direct elections taking place in China's one million villages, local officials decided that drastic measures -- political experimentation, in effect -- were needed to repair the functioning of local government. With the assistance of Chinese academics and officials familiar with the conduct of village elections, local Sichuan officials organized an election which included multi-candidate campaigning, the use of secret ballots and private voting booths, and transparent vote tabulation.

Buyun election organizers gave Beijing's leadership only two days notice of their intent to hold experimental elections on December 31, 1998. Three candidates for the position of township magistrate -- a school teacher, a village chief, and the township's Communist Party vice chairman -- reportedly conducted a competitive campaign which included visits to every village in Buyun township, such extensive campaigning is usually not seen in small village elections. Candidates arrived on flatbed trucks and tractors to deliver campaign speeches and discuss issues ranging from water pollution to the price of education. Perhaps a result of the campaign, voter turnout was 88 percent. By a slim margin, the Party leader was elected.

Initially, the Chinese government's official newspaper Legal Daily, condemned the election as "illegal" and "a violation of the Constitution." However, on February 26, 1999 (after four weeks of a government-mandated black out on news coverage of the election) a fifteen minute report on the Buyun election experiment was aired on national TV. A researcher from the Legislative Affairs Committee of the NPC was quoted as saying, "though the election did not abide by the current regulations and political system, it reflected a positive direction of rural democracy." According to election organizers, the NPC's comments created enough ambiguity to allow other townships to consider direct election experimentation.

Why Experiment in Buyun Township?

Buyun was an ideal place to conduct the election for several reasons: (1) it is extremely remote (confirming the Chinese saying that "the mountains are high, and the emperor is far way"); (2) Buyun citizens had not only removed their previous leader but also expressed a desire to hold direct elections; and, (3) officials at the county and provincial levels supported direct village elections and had previously conducted experiments with more open means to select candidates in other township elections. With rural unrest increasing throughout China, Sichuan officials may have deemed the timing right to experiment with traditional means of selecting township leaders.

Why Was the Buyun Election Tolerated?

Election organizers may have recognized that the impetus for political reform in China has largely taken place in experimental form and in the countryside. Village committee elections, for example, are rooted in collapse of collectivized agriculture and the dissolution of the commune system in the late 1970s. Much debate in Beijing followed after the first village committee election was held and it was not until the late 1980s that the first recognizable village elections took place.

Buyun officials certainly knew their experiment would be controversial, hence the delay in informing Beijing of their intentions, but they may have also been emboldened by Jiang Zemin's speech at the15th Party Congress that called for "extend[ing] the scope of democracy at the grassroots level. The grassroots organs of power [township governments]...in both urban and rural areas should establish a sound system of democratic elections."

The quandary for China's central government is whether to tolerate the Buyun experiment as a creative means to promote stability in the countryside (and risk greater calls for direct participation in selection of leaders) or to prohibit further direct township elections and risk greater unrest. Recent pressures of economic reform, rising unemployment, and rampant corruption have placed new emphasis on the importance of stability in the rural areas. Through village elections, corrupt officials have been voted out of office and replaced with leaders who possess entrepreneurial skills capable of developing local economies. The organizers of the Buyun experiment may be hoping for similar results.

Conclusion

Although Buyun's experiment was an important step in China's political reform, its longer term impact is unknown. No other township is known to have held a direct election. Nonetheless, the popular election of a township leader marked the first time direct election practices and procedures have been utilized above the village level. Significantly, Buyun's election drew heavily upon those practices and procedures used in village elections, which include many recommendations made by IRI over the years, such as the use of secret ballots, private voting booths, and the immediate transfer of power. IRI will continue to provide grassroots elections officials with technical election training, and the Institute intends to closely follow further developments in the China's first direct township election.

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