According to the deployment of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the work of electing delegates to the 18th National Party Congress started in October 2011 and completed successfully in July this year. Forty electoral units throughout China held Party congresses or Party representative assemblies to elect 2,270 delegates to the 18th National Party Congress.

The CPC Central Committee attached great importance to the election work. Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee listened to the work report many times and made important instructions. The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee launched special researches and made clear the guiding philosophy and policies of the election work. According to the general requirements of implementing the Party Constitution, carrying forward democracy, strengthening leadership, electing advanced delegates and ensuring their advanced natures and wide representativeness, the election of the 18th National Party Congress fully used the practices and experience of the election work of the 17th National Party Congress for reference. Thanks to a series of important measures under the principles of keeping pace with the time and launching reform and innovation, the election work achieved a great success, laying solid basis for holding the 18th National Party Congress.

1.Basic Information of the Delegates Elected

In general, the elected delegates to the 18th National Party Congress accord with the conditions required by the CPC Central Committee. They are outstanding members of the Communist Party of China and have made significant achievements in their production and work with high ideological and political quality and strong discussion ability. With reasonable structure and distribution, the election work reached various requirements on proportions put forward by the CPC Central Committee with wide representativeness. The candidates nominated by the CPC Central Committee attended the election in related electoral units and were elected successfully.

The structure of the elected delegates features the following traits:

The number of Party members on the production and work frontline increased. Of the delegates elected, 1,578 are the Party-member leading cadres, accounting for 69.5 percent of the total, 2.1 percentage points lower than that of the 17th National Party Congress; 692 are from the frontline of production and work, accounting for 30.5 percent, 2.1 percentage points higher than that of the 17th National Party Congress. Of the elected delegates of various provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), 34.4 percent are from the production and work frontline, 2.6 percentage points higher than that of the 17th National Party Congress.

Party-member workers' proportion increased greatly. Of the elected delegates, the number of the Party-member workers increased from 51 in the 17th National Party Congress to 169 (including 26 migrant workers), accounting for 7.4 percent of the total; Of the elected delegates of various provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the enterprises under the central government (in Beijing), 10.4 percent are the Party-member workers.

The numbers of women delegates and delegates of ethnic minorities increased. Of the elected delegates, 521 are women Party members, 76 more than that of the 17th National Party Congress, accounting for 23 percent of the total; there are also 249 Party members of the ethnic minorities, seven more than that of the 17th National Party Congress, accounting for 11 percent of the total. Forty-three minority ethnic groups have their delegates, one more than that of the 17th National Party Congress.

Reasonable age structure and better education background. The average age of the elected delegates is 52. Among them, 1,471 delegates are under 55 years old, accounting for 64.8 percent of the total; 399 are under 45 years old, accounting for 17.6 percent; 2,122 are junior college graduates, accounting for 93.5 percent. The number of young Party members increased. A total of 114 delegates are under 35 years old, accounting for 5 percent, 1.9 percentage points higher than that of the 17th National Party Congress.

Party members who joined the Party after China's reform and opening up constitute the major part of the delegates to the 18th National Party Congress. Of all the Party members elected as the delegates to the 18th National Party Congress, three joined the Party during the Second Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, four joined the Party during the War against the Japanese Aggression, five joined the Party during the Liberation War and 2,258 joined the Party after the founding of the People's Republic of China. A total of 1,640 delegates joined the Party after November 1976, accounting for 72.2 percent, 20.5 percentage points higher than that of the 17th National Party Congress. The Party members who joined the Party after China's reform and opening up constitutes the major part of the delegates to the 18th National Party Congress, indicating the prosperity and numerous successors of the cause of the CPC.

The elected delegates to the 18th National Party Congress are from various places throughout China and from different industries, in areas such as economy, science and technology, national defense, politics and law, education, publicity, culture, health, sports and social administration. There are leading cadres of various levels, Party members on the production and work frontline, workers, farmers, professionals, servicemen, grass-root cadres, managers in enterprises and public institutions and the Party members from non-public owned enterprises and new social organizations.

Before the 18th National Party Congress is held, the Credentials Committee of the Delegates for the 18th National Party Congress will examine the qualifications of the delegates elected and those whose qualifications are confirmed will attend the 18th National Party Congress. According to established practices, the CPC Central Committee will also invite some old Party members who have retired from their leading posts as the specially-invited delegates to the congress.

2. Information on the Delegate Election Work

The CPC Central Committee made clear the principles and measures of electing delegates to the 18th National Party Congress, namely, from bottom to top, combining the top with the bottom, repeated deliberation and selecting level by level. It also stipulated the procedures and steps of electing delegates. The election work bears the following characters:

(I) Giving full play to the in-Party democracy and strictly following the preset procedures. By earnestly institutionalizing, standardizing and routinizing the election work, related departments carry forward the in-Party democracy throughout the whole process of election. Various electoral units widely publicized the important significance, policies and regulations of the election work in various forms such as distributing handouts, sending cell phone text messages and posting open letters to the Party members so as to organize and mobilize the vast Party members, including mobile and retired Party members to participate in the nomination of candidates. Statistics show that the election work basically covered all the grass-root Party organizations of various electoral units and 98 percent of the Party members participated in the work. All the recommendations and nominations of delegates to the 18th National Party Congress started from the grass-root Party branches and were selected level by level through deliberations. All the preliminary and probationary candidates were affirmed by votes of the standing committees and plenary meetings of local Party committees. Multi-candidate election was used in the election work with the proportion multi-candidate election exceeding 15 percent, which is in line with the requirements of the CPC Central Committee.

(II) Emphasizing on the quality of the delegates under the principles of giving priority to their morality, stressing on their Party spirit and selecting advanced delegates. By giving priority to the morality and stressing on the Party spirit, various electoral units recommended the most advanced Party members to be the candidates. For the first time, the multi-candidate survey was conducted for the preliminary candidates of the delegates to the 18th National Party Congress so as to stress on the recognition of the candidates among the Party members and the masses. The candidates who could not meet the qualification were replaced in time. Of the delegates on the production and work frontline in various provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), 97.8 percent won the national and provincial (ministerial) commendations, 2.1 percentage points higher than that of the 17th National Party Congress.

(III) Highlighting the orientation of the grass-root frontline to improve the structure of the delegates. The CPC Central Committee clearly required properly increasing the quota of the Party members on the production and work frontline so as to greatly increase the proportion of delegates of Party-member workers. Electoral units such as various provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) properly reduced the number of leading cadres and increased the number of the grass-root Party members on the frontline. In the election process, various measures such as publicity and guidance, guarantee from the fountainhead, oriented recommendation and ensuring the base number were taken to recommend the Party members on the production and work frontline, especially Party-member workers to be the candidates, and elect the Party members on the production and work frontline in full number according to the quota. Of the elected delegates, the number of the Party members on the production and work frontline, especially the Party-member workers, increased dramatically, meeting the requirements put forward by the CPC Central Committee.

(IV) Strengthening discipline supervision to ensure the healthy trend. Under the principle of giving priority to education, early warning and prevention, various electoral units learned from the practices and experience of restricting the term-end election disciplines to strengthen supervision on the whole process of the delegate election work. In light of the reality, various electoral units formulated disciplines and regulations for the election work to supervise and guide the election process and assess the atmosphere of the election, ensuring the healthy trend of the election work. While earnestly preparing the election of the 18th National Party Congress, various electoral units also took the opportunity to organize the vast Party members to study the Party Constitution, learn from the advanced Party members, carry forward healthy trends and encourage them to strive to be model Party members, so as to make the process of electing the delegates to the 18th National Party Congress an education process of the Party spirit, the Party's style of work and the Party discipline, a process of practicing in-Party democracy and education of democratic centralism system, and a process of maintaining and developing the advanced nature of the CPC members, consolidating and enhancing the activity of earnestly studying and practicing the Scientific Outlook on Development and enhancing the achievement of the activity of excelling in performances in an effort to encourage the grass-root Party organizations and the vast Party members to greet the 18th National Party Congress with excellent achievements.

(Released by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee)