Officials praise direct elections in villages ( 2003-11-04 22:12) (China Daily)
The successful implementation of direct elections
in rural areas has greatly improved people's enthusiasm for participating in
government and political affairs, participants of a national seminar said in
Beijing yesterday.
In recent years, national efforts to enhance the function of village
committees have begun to bear fruit and the days when rural people's destiny was
simply decided by administrative directions have gone, said Chen Jiechang,
vice-minister of civil affairs who attended the seminar on villager autonomy.
More than 80 per cent of franchised villagers have participated in village
committee elections which have produced a number of educated, skilled and
ambitious village leaders, Chen said at the seminar to mark the fifth
anniversary of the launch of the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees.
The country has more than 680,000 village committees, with more than 2.9
million officials working in those committees, ministry statistics show.
The National People's Congress (NPC) formally implemented the Organic Law of
Villagers' Committees in 1998, on the basis of an 11-year trial code on villager
autonomy.
"The democratic election of village leaders is only the first step, and the
work of villagers' committees needs to be standardized to promote rural economic
and social progress,'' Chen said.
The committees should always be development-focussed and make public affairs
and financial information transparent, Chen said.
To most rural residents, selecting committee members who can lead them
towards a better future is one of the most important things in their lives, said
Gu Xiulian, vice-chairperson of the NPC.
More and more villagers have begun participating in the build-up of democracy
in a pragmatic way and their actions prove that the democratic system is a
tremendous cohesive force which helps people make the right choices about their
villages, Gu said.
Lu Liangzhong, director of the civil affairs bureau of Beijing's Changping
District, said that the successful undertaking of villager autonomy will lay a
solid foundation for the country's development of democracy.
Lu's district and another 224 counties, cities and districts have been
recognized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs as models of villager autonomy
across the country.
Thanks to the astounding achievements made on economic and social fronts in
China over the past few years, ordinary people can now focus on bigger issues
like government building, democracy promotion and individual rights protection,
Lu said.
"We have reason to hope that more and more people will attach greater
attention to their right to vote and safeguard their lawful right to supervise
the actions of the officials they have elected,'' he said.
