Migrant workers will serve as deputies to county or township
people's congresses via direct elections this year, the Standing
Committee of the Nanjing Municipal People's Congress in east
China's Jiangsu Province announced.
The election will be conducted in areas where the most migrant
workers reside, revealed Gu Shanxiang, the spokesman of the Nanjing
Municipal People's Congress. He added that the new practice acts in
the spirit of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party
of China and expands citizens' participation in politics,
ensuring people's rights to know, to participate, to express and to
supervise.
According to the Standing Committee of the municipal people's
congress, the structure of county and township deputies to this
year's elections will make corresponding adjustments. The
proportion of workers, farmers, intellectuals, women and non-Party
members will be raised while that of cadres and members of people's
political consultative conferences will be reduced, according to Li
Jian, an official from deputy liaison office of the Standing
Committee.
Migrant workers will be directly elected as deputies for the
first time in the city. This is necessary in order to protect
migrant workers' interests since there are more than one million
migrant farmers working in the city all year round.
Li also revealed some requirements for migrant worker deputies.
They should have a permanent occupation and permanent residence,
with permanent signifying more than one year. "To elect deputies
from city cleaners is a mature plan using those premises," said
Li.
Statistics show that there are some 10,000 city sanitation
workers with regular incomes in Nanjing.
(China.org.cn by Huang Shan November 8, 2007)