IRI Hosts Conference to Promote Election Reform

January 15, 2003

IRI organized a two-day conference December 18-19 in Hainan Province on grassroots election campaigning to promote election reform and grassroots democracy in China. Montana Secretary of State and IRI trainer Bob Brown shared his experiences in running and regulating grassroots campaigns with the 30 Chinese conference participants.

China's central leadership has been reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace the idea of election campaigning for fear that competitive election campaigns may lead to calls for a multiparty system. Nevertheless, IRI has found that Chinese election administrators and local leaders have become increasingly interested in campaigning. Although participants in the Hainan conference disagreed on certain elements of campaigning, they seemed to agree that now is the time to actively promote election campaigning in China.

In 2001, IRI held a ground-breaking conference on election campaigning in Hong Kong attended by election officials from the PRC, Taiwan, the United States and Europe. At that time the topic was considered too sensitive to be openly discussed in the PRC. The fact that in 2002 such a conference could be held in Hainan is a mark of significant progress.

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