Chinese lawmakers Tuesday have revamped their decades-old method of writing the ballots to ensure "100 percent democracy" in their voting procedures when they elect state leaders and decide on government lineups.
The new method, which requires all lawmakers to write on the ballots no matter they vote pro or con or choose to abstain, is entitled to be first applied when the top legislature votes to elect China's new state military chief, or the chairman of the State Central Military Commission, on Sunday.
"Though the revision only involves a 'trivial' detail, it is of vital importance to ensuring that every lawmaker can fully exercise his democratic rights without any outside influence or interference in voting and elections," commented Wang Quanjie, a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature now in its annual full session in Beijing.
At a full meeting convened in the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing Tuesday morning, the nearly 3,000 NPC deputies decided to revoke the old balloting method which provided that only those who are to abstain or vote against the candidates need to write on the ballot.
"The old method seems to spare the trouble of ballot-writing for those who vote in favor of the candidates and help shorten the voting time, but at the same time it can also possibly betray anyone who doesn't support the candidates, putting them under immense pressure," said Wang.
Some national lawmakers who also serve in local legislatures told Xinhua that they had encountered quite a few cases in which some "incompetent and unpopular" candidates got elected due to the "loopholes in the voting procedures".
"Once you pick up the pen and write your ballot, everyone present knows you are either abstaining or opposing. This has virtually turned the 'secret ballot' into an 'open ballot' and has kept the deputies from expressing their will freely and truthfully," said a lawmaker from northeast China's Heilongjiang Province who asked not to be identified.
The northeastern province laid bare a string of political scandals which led to the downfall of several provincial-level officials. Some of the ousted officials, said the local lawmaker, had been elected to their posts despite their "bad reputations" among the local deputies "largely owing to the old ballot-writing method".
In another extreme case, local lawmakers in one unnamed place were even given "totally unsharpened pencils" to "make sure no one can cast a vote of opposition or abstention", another NPC deputy told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
"The new method adopted by the top national legislature today will surely encourage the local legislatures to follow suit, thus further enhancing democracy nationwide," said the deputy.
According to the new method, every ballot sheet will have three oval-shape blanks on it, representing "pro", "con" and "abstention" respectively, and every lawmaker has to fill in the corresponding blank with an ink pen to write down their positions.
Though the NPC had introduced an advanced electronic voting system years before, lawmakers still need to cast the traditional paper ballots on major issues such as the election of top state and government leaders and the adoption of Constitutional amendments.
It has also been a decade-old practice at the annual NPC sessions to set up "secret balloting booths" for the lawmakers, but sources said such booths were seldom used "probably for it would be too conspicuous for people to go into them for writing the ballot."
(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2005)
