The Communist Party of China (CPC) placed political integrity as the most important benchmarks when choosing nominees who could finally come into the new central leadership.

The 17th CPC National Congress elected Sunday 204 members and 167 alternate members of the CPC Central Committee, which will make key decisions in the coming five years. The congress also elected 127 members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

For election of the new central leadership, the CPC dispatched in mid 2006 about 60 investigation teams to review possible nominees among 43,300 Party cadres recommended to the selection pool.

Political integrity, particularly faith, political viewpoints and attitudes, performance at pivotal times on vital issues, is on the top priority in reviewing Party cadres who were recommended.

The CPC is determined to choose honest, diligent, down-to-earth and capable cadres over flatulent, vaunting, flip-flop and bad- received officials.

The CPC also put implementation of the Scientific Outlook on Development as one important standard. The scientific outlook requires concerted and coordinated economic and social development. The investigation teams reviewed not only growth of gross domestic product, but also public safety, environmental protection, taxation and social welfare data collected from statistics authorities.

(Xinhua News Agency October 21, 2007)