A typical day for 46-year-old Ai Hong starts with weeding and
clearing of the terraced fields, but on election day he was in the
village primary school to cast his vote.
"Farm work can be left till tomorrow, but today I won't mind
anything else since election is the top priority," said Ai on the
day of the village committee election, October 12.
Mannongfeng village in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous
Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan
Province, where Ai lives, has 604 households and 2,776
villagers all of the Dai ethnic minority.
Three years ago, the villagers elected the village committee,
the executive body of self-management, for the first time through
direct voting, and this time, they will exercise their rights
again.
In order to safeguard grassroots democracy, China promulgated
the law on village committees in November 1998 after more than a
decade of pilot elections, formally putting grass-roots democratic
self-management on a legal footing.
Last year, 25 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities
held elections for village committees, which serve a three-year
term, with turnouts as high as 80 percent.
This year, another six provinces or autonomous regions,
including Yunnan, will see elections, and Wang Jinhua, head of
grass-roots election affairs with the Ministry of Civil Affairs,
predicted that the figure is expected to grow.
"This indicates that after years of practice, the democratic
consciousness of China's vast number of villagers has been greatly
lifted," said Lu Xueyi, president of the China Sociology
Society.
The election at Mannongfeng village lasted for almost a day and
2,084 out of the total 2,086 eligible voters took part, a turnout
of 99.9 percent.
The sitting director of the village committee, 29-year-old Ai
Hanyong, was re-elected with a landslide victory of 1,539
votes.
Ai Hong, who voted for another candidate and waited in the rain
for the result, was not disappointed.
"This is the result of free elections by villagers," said Ai. "I
believe that the new village committee has the capability to lead
us toward a better life."
In nearby Baka village, dominated by the ethnic Hani group,
villagers also exercised their democratic rights in the election of
the village committee.
Zhang Xiaohong, who had just reached the legal voting age of 18,
performed what she deemed a "sacred" task in voting for the first
time.
"Anyone who is a member of the village and has reached the age
of 18 is fully endowed the right to vote according to their own
will," said Zhang.
According to A Wu, deputy party chief of Jing Hong City, to
which the two villages belong, in the three years since the first
election, the villagers' awareness of their democratic rights has
greatly improved.
"In the past, villagers were indifferent, but now they have come
to realize that those who are willing to serve them and are capable
of leading them toward prosperity should win their votes," said A
Wu.
In both villages, a strict election procedure was followed, from
registration and the nomination of candidates in the early stage to
the introduction of candidates, checking and distribution of votes,
voting, counting, and result announcements.
Lu Xueyi said that over the past decade, especially during the
five years since the promulgation of the law on village committees,
China has succeeded in establishing grassroots democratic
practice.
"The progress is not just reflected by the raising of democratic
consciousness, but also by the strict observance of laws and
regulations by grassroots officials in order to better safeguard
the democratic rights of the people," Lu said.
(Xinhua News Agency October 26, 2003)