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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215344)	1/28/2007 10:20:11 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What are urban elections in China? Urban community elections have been occurring on an experimental basis in China since 1999. In that year, 12 pilot cities were allowed to hold elections for positions on urban residence committees, the lowest level of state power in Chinese cities. In some cities, a number of residents committees have been combined into what are called "urban community committees" and elections are held for positions in the bodies. The law governing urban elections was first passed in 1989 and was patterned on the experimental village committee law of 1987. For most of the history of the People's Republic of China, residence committee leaders were appointed by the municipal Party apparatus, and the primary organizing unit in most large Chinese cities was the work unit, or danwei, which provided the cradle-to-grave social services known collectively as the "iron rice bowl." Although urban residents committees existed, positions on those committees were primarily held by elderly, often barely literate women, and functions of the committees were limited to menial neighborhood tasks and snooping into urban citizens' private lives. China's cities have been undergoing massive social and economic change in recent years. With more and more state-owned enterprise failures and increasing unemployment, work units have become less important and less effective in many cities. Simultaneously, the influx of migrant workers into urban areas has dramatically altered the urban landscape. Crime has increased as have street protests and labor unrest. Residents committees as they were formerly conceived and structured no longer meet the needs of China's city dwellers. iri.org

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215344)	1/28/2007 10:26:43 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Those were urban elections, now for this part. Village elections are the consequence of economic reforms begun two decades ago by the late Deng Xiaoping. He liberated the peasants to work their own land, and the communes collapsed. After heated debate, Beijing decided to replace them with village committees, composed of a Chairman and two to six assembly members. This goal was written into the Constitution of 1982, and five years later, the NPC passed a law on village elections that required a secret ballot and other critical procedures that made possible a meaningful election. The Ministry of Civil Affairs now organizes elections in about 1 million villages, where 75 percent of China's people live. cartercenter.org