Jamie P. Horsley
Cover by Benjamin Hurd
Jamie P. Horsley is a lawyer and currently a consultant to the Carter Center's China Village Election Project. She lived and worked in China for 13 years, as a lawyer, diplomat, and corporate executive, and continues to speak and write on developments in China. This article is based on field observations and discussions with Chinese officials, as well as research done in preparation for a longer paper entitled, "A Legal Perspective on the Development of Electoral Democracy in China: The Case of Village Elections," to be published in "Essays on Chinese Law" (a festschrift in honor of Jerome Alan Cohen, forthcoming).
Well established and spreading to the cities, China's villager committee elections are forging a path toward rule of law in China
The themes the government articulated in justifying the introduction of village democracy -- including the complementary nature of political and economic reforms and the intimate relationship between democracy and the rule of law -- are now being repeated in a national context, suggesting a shift toward more openness and pluralism.
Typical VC work plans might include raising funds for and constructing a new schoolhouse, installing cable TV in the village, or persuading the neighboring village to help build a better road.
The thousands of rural protests and riots that have been reported in the press in recent years indicate that VCs are no panacea for the myriad problems plaguing Chinese farmers. Indeed, rural complaints primarily involve corruption, charging of excessive and illegal fees, and other abuses of power by township and higher-level government officials.
In one of the earlier reported instances of a quasi-direct township election that might serve as a model for further experiments, all registered voters in Dapeng Town in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, were allowed to participate in a form of sea election to nominate candidates for town magistrate.
The Party is now experimenting more widely with a "two-ballot system" for electing local branch secretaries--the first ballot involving a popular vote on potential candidates and the second ballot restricted to Party members.
In 1999 the Ministry of Civil Affairs selected and the Party approved about 20 cities to experiment with more open residents' committee (RC) elections, involvement of younger people in RC work, and other fresh approaches to urban grassroots self-governance.
Since the early 1980s, the Chinese government has been quietly promoting, through the establishment of directly elected villager committees (cunmin weiyuanhui), what may be the world's largest grassroots democratic education process. The 1998 Organic Law on Villager Committees (VC Law) requires villager committees (VCs) to implement democratic administration and subjects them to fiscal accountability. Supervised by the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), they constitute the lowest level of civil administration in China. In some areas of Fujian Province, the country's leader in electoral innovation, villagers have just finished voting in their seventh round of regularly scheduled VC elections.
This process of village democratizat ion is laying a foundation for the development of the rule of law among the 900 million Chinese who live in the countryside by teaching them their rights and responsibilities under the VC Law and by demonstrating the benefits of having accountable leaders whom they can vote out of office or even, in extreme cases, recall.
The villager committee experience is also influencing election practices and democratic governance in urban communities, higher-level township governments, and within the Chinese Communist Party, among other political arenas. Moreover, the themes the government articulated in justifying the introduction of village democracy--including the complementary nature of political and economic reforms and the intimate relationship between democracy and the rule of law--are now being repeated in a national context, suggesting a shift toward more openness and pluralism.
The villager committees: Out of the Cultural Revolution
The concept of villager self-governance through elected VCs emerged from the political and economic chaos of the decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Party leaders hoped the committees would promote stability and economic prosperity by allowing villagers to choose leaders they trusted and making these leaders directly accountable to their constituents. Party leaders also hoped the committees would help improve the relationship between villagers and the st ate. The government realized that to enforce unpopular central policies such as taxes and family planning, the state would have to improve this relationship. Although China has a long tradition of a kind of rural "home rule," used to relieve the empire of day-to-day administration in its numerous far-flung villages, never had competitively elected local governance been introduced at that level nationwide.
China's 1982 constitution provides for villager committees, elected by village residents, to handle public affairs and social services, mediate civil disputes, help maintain public order, and convey residents' requests and opinions to the people's government. The formal government extends from the top in Beijing down only to the township, one organizational level above the village. In 1987 the National People's Congress (NPC) adopted a provisional law that was made permanent as the VC Law in November 1998, after a decade's experience, public comment on a published draft revision, and heated debate over issues such as the degree of autonomy villager committees should enjoy.
The VC Law's primary goals are to ensure villager self-government and promote grassroots socialist democracy, material development, and culture and ideology. The law highlights the VC responsibilities outlined in the constitution and adds the duty of educating villagers on their rights and obligations under the law. Importantly, the la w also gives VCs certain key economic responsibilities, which include management and allocation of village lands and collective property--matters of direct concern to all villagers--as well as support for cooperative economic projects and village production. The higher-level township governments guide, support, and assist--rather than lead--the VCs. The VCs, in turn, assist the township governments in their official work, such as tax and grain collection, family planning, and military conscription. Typical VC work plans might include raising funds for and constructing a new schoolhouse, installing cable TV in the village, or persuading the neighboring village to help build a better road.
The VC itself is composed of three to seven members, including a chair, one or more vice chairs, and ordinary members, all serving three-year terms. VCs are to include an "appropriate number" of national minorities and women, although the proportion of female VC members nationwide is still very low due, according to local leaders and civil affairs officials, to the perception among villagers of the "low quality" of the education and experience of rural women. VC membership is not a full-time or salaried occupation, although members generally receive some compensation for the time they spend on VC work.
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| Ballot b
ox and polling station, Xiangling Village, Xianyou County, Fujian Province, August 3, 2000 Photographs courtesy of Jamie P. Horsley |
The VC, as the "executive arm" of village governance, is accountable to the villager assembly, which is a body composed of all villagers aged 18 years and older. The villager assembly reviews the VC's annual report and evaluates its members, and may recall VC members and hold by-elections should vacancies occur during the VC term. The villager assembly may also make ultimate decisions on matters raised by the VC that involve the interests of all the villagers, somewhat akin to the people's congresses established at the township level and above. The villager assembly is further charged with formulating detailed village pledges and charters that govern the day-to-day work of the VC. Normally convened by the VC, the villager assembly may also be called at any time upon the request of 10 percent of the adult villagers.
Villager committee elections
The PRC has long held elections of various sorts. The typical arrangement in the past, for commune leaders for example, would be for the Communist Party to decide on a slate of candidates, one candidate for each open position, and present that slate to the voters for approval or disapproval. Voting would generally be by a public show of hands at a mass meeting. VC ballots are still often designed for voters to indicate their approval or disapproval for each candidate, rather than merely to vote for the candidate of their choice, and mass meetings are often called to conduct VC elections. On the whole, however, VC election practice and law have progressed a long way from those early elections.
The 1998 VC Law now incorporates important democratic elements designed to ensure that the villagers truly have a choice in selecting their leaders, including
- Open, direct nominations by individuals rather than groups;
- Multiple candidates;
- Secret ballots;
- The mandatory use of secret voting booths to ensure the integrity of the individual vote;
- A public count of the votes;
- Immediate announcement of election results; and
- Recall procedures.
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| Unlocking ballot boxes for public ballot count of open "sea election" in Qiuban Village, Xiaokou Town, Dehua County, Fujian Province, August 2, 2000 |
Details on nominating procedures and the selection of official candidates--and the decision whether to hold primary elections at all--are left to local discretion. An open and competitive method referred to as a "sea election" (haixuan) has recently gained widespread popularity. Conceived by farmers in Lishu County, Jilin Province, this method operates like an open primary. Every voter has the right to nominate candidates for all open offices, candidates are often permitted to make campaign speeches and answer questions from the villagers, and the top vote-getters then go on to compete in the final election. In one sea election conducted in Hebei Province in January 2000, for example, roughly 150 candidates were nominated, and, based on the number of votes received, ultimately whittled down to two candidates for VC chair, two for VC vice chair, and four for the three VC member positions. In a modified sea election held in Fujian in August 2000, interested candidates were encouraged to register and participate in a candidates' forum prior to the vote, which resulted in a more manageable number of nominees.
The VC Law strengthens measures on transparency and accountability to ensure democratic self-government. It introduces the so-called "four democracies": democratic election, democratic decisionmaking, democratic management, and democratic supervision. The VC must not only abide by majority rule in making decisions and obtain approval from the villager assembly for action on specified matters (democratic decisionmaking) but must also adhere to the principle of "open management" of village affairs. This involves publicizing financial matters, every six months and promptly making public--typically on the village bulletin board--all decisions on important community-related matters, including family planning, disaster relief, payment of electricity and water bills, and the salaries and stipends of Party cadres and VC members (democratic management).
The VC Law gives villagers the right to report to higher levels of government if the VC does not publicize materials in a timely and accurate manner, and responsible persons are to be held liable for any violations verified through investigation. Moreover, the villager assembly is to review the VC's annual work report, evaluate the performance of committee members, and vote on any request to recall a VC member, thus making VC members directly accountable to the villagers (democratic supervision).
The VC Law is weak on explicit enforcement provisions. Most complaints, on issues such as fraudulent financial reporting, failure to hold elections on time, and refusal to install properly elected VC leaders, are handled by administrative appeal t o MCA. Nonetheless, villagers have demonstrated a quick grasp of the significance of their rights under the VC system and have not been shy about filing administrative complaints, resorting to press appeals, and taking advantage of the recall provisions to oust corrupt and incompetent officials. One early recall case, for example, involved a village official who misappropriated RMB660,000 (about $80,000) in village funds for personal use. In another, a VC official illegally sold village land and embezzled funds.
Branching out
Elected VCs are popular and may be introducing some measure of stability in the countryside. Nonetheless, the thousands of rural protests and riots that have been reported in the press in recent years indicate that VCs are no panacea for the myriad problems plaguing Chinese farmers. Indeed, rural complaints primarily involve corruption, charging of excessive and illegal fees, and other abuses of power by township and higher-level government officials. These officials hold much greater power than VC members over spending on infrastructure and provision of other government services, but are not directly accountable to their putative constituents.
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| Counting ballots at polling stations, Liuxian Village, Xianyou County, Fujian Province, August 3, 2000 |
People's congress deputies
By law, the same villagers who elect their village leaders also vote every three years for their representative or deputy to the township people's congress and every five years for their deputy to the county people's congress. The township people's congress in turn elects the township magistrate and other township officials. The county people's congress elects county-level officials as well as representatives to the provincial people's congress, which in turn elects representatives to the NPC.
Township and county deputies are technically accountable to, and subject to recall by, the citizens who directly elect them. The electoral law governing people's congress elections provides for competition through multiple candidates, write-in candidates, and secret ballots. However, since the nomination and candidate selection procedures for people's congress deputies are neither as open nor as competitive as those for VCs, the relevant Party organization still retains a good deal of control over determining the official candidate list. It is no surprise that township people's congress deputies generally appear more responsive to the Party and their superiors in the people's congress system than to the residents they are supposed to represent.
The people's congresses have, nonetheless, cautiously begun to exercise some of their own powers of election and confirmation. In 1988, a small number of provincial and provincial-level municipal people's congresses elected their own candidates for provincial vice governorships and vice mayorships, rejecting Party candidates. In spring 1993, six candidates nominated by people's congress deputies--and not on the Party list--were elected as vice governors. And, for the first time in the PRC's history, candidates put forward by the provincial people's congress deputies defeated Party-sponsored candidates for provincial governorships (in Guizhou and Zhejiang). Since the late 1980s, people's congress deputies have also begun to assert their independence, electing their own preferred candidates--rather than a predetermined slate--for deputies to the higher-level people's congresses and their own congress leaders.
Some Chinese election experts believe that the democratic improvements in the 1998 VC Law have created the conditions for further revision to the 1979 people's congress electoral law, last amended in 1995. The next round of township people's congress elections will begin in October 2001 and will be staggered throughout China over three to four months. The NPC, which oversees elections at the township level and above, will be experimenting with improvements in election procedur es and will be collecting statistics with an eye to revising the law.
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| One of the winners of the Liuxian Village villager committee election shows his new Villager Committee Member Certificate. August 3, 2000 |
Township elections
Another promising development is the increasing experimentation, especially since 1998, with more direct voter participation in the election of township officials. That year, the Party began to promote open administration (subject to public supervision) in both village and township affairs, thus laying the groundwork for more accountable township government and some form of direct participation in the election of township officials. In one of the earlier reported insta nces of a quasi-direct township election that might serve as a model for further experiments, all registered voters in Dapeng Town in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, were allowed to participate in a form of sea election to nominate candidates for town magistrate. Electors representing about one-fifth of the town's population, selected by the election organizing committee from among local officials, Party members, VC members, villager-small-group chiefs, town resident committee members, and representatives of enterprises and unions, then voted among the five qualified candidates who received more than 100 votes on the first ballot, in what was called an "opinion poll." The winning candidate's name was then submitted to the township people's congress for a confirming vote, in accordance with current law.
Of course, moving direct elections from villages of a few hundred or a few thousand residents, where everyone typically knows everyone else, to the township and higher levels becomes more complicated. The role and financing of candidates' campaigns, and the need for lesser-known candidates to appeal to aggregated interests, out of which pressure to form political groupings and parties would very likely emerge, are just some of the thorny issues the government and the Party will have to address. The Party has not wavered from its firm stand that China will not move to a Western-style, multiparty political system. Howeve r, while it considers ways to introduce direct elections at higher levels of government, the Party is permitting quiet experiments in such places as Anhui, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, and Sichuan provinces, as well as Shenzhen, to gain insight and experience before tackling the matter formally.
Party elections
In the early years, turnover in village leadership was an estimated 15-40 percent. That percentage seems to be declining as trusted neighbors fill most VC positions. The Party was quick to capitalize on what turned out to be a good method of identifying popular and competent candidates for Party membership, and the number of Party members serving on VC committees appears to be on the rise. This phenomenon has led some observers to characterize VC elections as largely designed to consolidate Party power at the village level.
That the Party has taken advantage of the new system to shore up its ranks and credibility does not, however, detract from the influence the democratic experience is starting to have on elections for other offices. In fact, in an encouraging indication of a growing receptivity to popular participation, the Party is now experimenting more widely with a "two-ballot system" for electing local branch secretaries--the first ballot involving a popular vote on potential candidates and the second ballot restricted to Party members.
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| Voting booth, Qiuban Village |
Urban elections and the emergence of "communities"
The urban counterparts of villager committees are residents' or neighborhood committees. Authorized by the same constitutional provision as the VCs, the residents' committees (RCs, chengshi jumin weiyuanhui) date back to 1954, when they were first conceived to serve urban residents who did not be long to a state unit (danwei) such as a state-owned factory or government agency. The RCs were to handle such matters as civil mediation, household registration, and family planning, but were generally unpopular and seen as intrusive. They also competed with service organizations like the Communist Youth League, women's associations, and local Party branches. A 1989 law on residents' committees, patterned largely upon the trial VC law of 1987, called for RCs to be set up for every 100-700 households and answer to a residents' assembly. RC members were to be elected by representatives of households or small groups of residents, rather than directly by the individual residents. In practice, RC members have typically been appointed by the Party.
One of the reasons RCs never became a popular civic force was that city dwellers saw no direct connection between the RCs and their economic and social interests. As the numbers of laid-off workers and the urban unemployed rise, and government and state-owned employers provide fewer housing, schooling, medical, and retirement benefits, urban residents must look elsewhere for support. The RCs are emerging as one potential source.
Thus, in 1999 MCA selected and the Party approved about 20 cities to experiment with more open RC elections, involvement of younger people in RC work, and other fresh approaches to urban grassroots self-governance. Some large cities lik e Beijing; Chongqing; Nanjing, Jiangsu Province; and Shenyang, Liaoning Province, are expanding neighborhood boundaries to create larger "communities" (shequ) consisting of thousands of households rather than the hundreds organized into RC neighborhoods. In some places residents, using secret ballots and generally following the procedures in the VC Law, directly elected community committees or councils. In others, committee members were still elected by household representatives or by proxy. The NPC plans to revise the 1989 Organic Law on Residents' Committees within the next year or so, and is conducting preparatory investigations throughout China.
Implications for the rule of law
The Chinese speak of the VC Law as an important part of the country's strategy to establish the rule of law. As one official in Qianxi County, Hebei Province, put it: "The purpose of the villager committee elections is to, in accordance with the law, elect good officials who will serve the people, and to develop the economy and ensure social stability. You cannot separate democracy and the rule of law," he observed. "Democracy is the foundation and guarantee of doing things according to the law."
China has no tradition of democracy and rule of law, however. While developing sound legal codes and building legal institutions to implement and enforce laws are critical to establishing the rule of law, so is n urturing a society that understands the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a modern state. The introduction of democratic elections, self-governance, and transparency in financial and administrative affairs in the villages, with mechanisms to enforce accountability through recall and term elections as well as legal and administrative remedies, are significant building blocks for the spread of democracy, government accountability, and rule of law to higher levels and other sectors of Chinese society.
These developments are part of a series of broader reforms that complement China's economic development. Such reforms include permitting Chinese citizens to sue government agencies in certain cases; more competitive recruitment of government and Party officials through open examinations; the setting up of hotlines to report corruption, register complaints, and otherwise improve oversight over local governments; and greater participation in the legislative process, as more draft legislation is made available for public comment.
At the conclusion of the Fifth Plenum of the 15th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2000, the Party echoed earlier calls to enhance democracy and the legal system, but also explicitly recognized that restructuring the political system is a necessary adjunct to the country's ongoing economic reforms and "socialist" modernization drive. In addition to its main focus on economic development and the impact of China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the plenum set the complementary goals of strengthening the establishment of a democratic political system, promoting "scientific and democratic" decisionmaking, and expanding citizens' participation in political affairs in an "orderly way." The Plenum further endorsed broader implementation of the "four democracies" that were developed in the context of VC elections. Recently, citing the Fifth Plenum's call for greater citizen participation in political affairs, the Chinese government for the first time invited public input on the Tenth Five-Year Plan.
The increasing emphasis on the transparency of village and government affairs, official accountability, and governance in accordance with law bode well for the creation of a climate in China that is conducive to compliance with its future WTO transparency and rule of law obligations. These trends also suggest that China is gradually feeling its way toward at least some limited "democracy with Chinese characteristics" under the leadership of the Communist Party. In the process, the Party will build on important lessons being learned in the countryside about effective governance based on the consent of the governed through fair and competitive elections.
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Sea Election in Qiuban Village, Fujian Province, August 2, 2000
Fujian Province's first "sea election" under the 1998 Organic Law on Villager Committees (the VC Law) took place on August 2, 2000 in Qiuban Village of Xiaokou Town, Dehua County, Fujian Province. Nestled deep among lush hillsides dotted with rice fields, temples, and two-story red brick houses topped with gracefully arching dragon roofs, Qiuban is a poor village with 660 residents, of which 444 are registered voters and 12 are Communist Party members. The village has only one road leading in and out, and the nearest village is eight kilometers away. The Qiuban Villager Committee (VC) consists of a chair and two members. Election day was preceded by the selection of the seven-member villager election committee by the villager representative assembly, voter registration, and a nomination process in which residents could register their interest in running for the VC or be registered by others. Three men, none of them incumbents or Chinese Communist Party members, registered to run for the position of chair. A candidates' forum lasting four hours took place one evening, during which registered candidates were invited to give speeches and answer questions. Because sea elections are totally open, villagers could also vote for residents who had not registered for or particip ated in the forum. The election on August 2 was scheduled to take place from 8-11:00 am, at the Qiuban Village school and office compound. Residents gathered in the courtyard first to hear procedural instructions from the villager election committee. Voters were to line up at one of three ballot stations, corresponding to the three "villager small groups" in which Qiuban residents are organized. Election monitors manned desks at the head of each line, where they carefully checked voter identification cards against the voter registration list and proxy authorization forms (from villagers who lived outside of Qiuban) against the proxy registration list. The cards and forms were stamped, and voters were then given a blank ballot. One at a time, voters entered a designated classroom containing a secret-ballot booth, which consisted of a curtained-off desk and chair. "Scribes"--teachers from outside the village--were available to fill in ballots for voters who were illiterate or otherwise needed assistance. Completed ballots were to be folded over and deposited by the voter personally in a locked ballot box positioned outside the room, under scrutiny of an election monitor. Voting finished shortly after 11:00 am. The three ballot boxes were set on tables arranged in front of the courtyard, in full view of the gathered residents. The boxes were unlocked, opened, and emptied onto flat round baskets. The ballots we re first counted by election workers assigned to each villager small group to ensure the number of ballots cast did not exceed that of registered voters, and the total number of ballots cast was announced. All but 25 of 444 eligible voters cast ballots, including 64 who voted by registered proxies, thus exceeding the 50 percent threshold of voter participation required by law to validate the election. The ballots were then mixed together and re-distributed to the ballot counters, so that determining how each villager small group had voted would be impossible. The names written under each position on every ballot were then called out, and the votes recorded on two large sheets of paper posted on either side of the courtyard. The results were tallied and announced on the spot. As is often the case with wide-open sea elections, no candidate received more than the 50 percent required to be elected, and a run-off election among the top vote-getters was held a few days later. --Jamie P. Horsley |
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International Support for Village Elections
China's village elections program, launched quietly and tentatively in the 1980s, started to attract international attention and assistance when the program began to gain momentum in the early 1990s. Organizations such as the Asia Foundation (www.asiafoundation.org); the Carter Center (www.cartercenter.com/China.html); the Ford Foundation (www.fordfound.org); and the International Republican Institute (www.iri.org) of the United States; the Canadian and the Finnish, Danish, and several other European governments; the European Union as a whole; and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have all lent financial and technical support of various kinds. Their efforts have focused, at the request of China's Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), on training election officials and newly elected villager committee members, and producing civic education materials such as illustrated posters on the 1998 Organic Law on Villager Committees, the function of villager committees, and proper election procedures. The Carter Center* has been working with MCA to develop software that will help compile a national, computerized database to collect and analyze the results of village elections. The database will provide information on how the elections are working and will help MCA identify any problems. The center is also working with MCA to develop websites that post legislation, policy documents, and news on villager committee elections. More information on MCA's programs and village electi on developments can be found at the websites given above and www.chinarural.org (in Chinese). * In April 2000, the US-China Legal Cooperation Fund awarded the Carter Center a modest grant to support a cooperative project with the PRC Ministry of Civil Affairs to compile a handbook for election officials conducting village-level elections in China. The Legal Cooperation Fund is a project of the China Business Forum, Inc., the research and education arm of the US-China Business Council. --Jamie P. Horsley |
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