Over 130 local officials have been charged with vote-buying, embezzlement and other election fraud as millions of Chinese voters elect tens of thousands of officials and representatives this year and next.

 

The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection stated in a press release on Tuesday that 70 cases involving election irregularities are under investigation.

 

Under China's electoral process, elections for officials to Party posts and representatives to non-Party legislative bodies are being held concurrently this year and next. Eighty million Party members will vote to elect 100,000 Party officials and millions more registered voters will elect representatives to local and regional people's congresses and consultative assemblies.

 

Supervision is under way nationwide by specially-dispatched inspections teams. Several provinces have also set up telephone hotlines and websites inviting the public to report corruption and malpractice.

 

"In general, elections at the municipal, county and township levels are going on well," the Party press release added.

 

However, several election scandals have already been exposed. Earlier this year, Lu Chengli, former deputy head of the town of Tangzhui near Wuchuan City, in south China's Guangdong Province, was removed from his post and expelled from the Party after rigging the election as deputy town head in April. He gave favors to 12 delegates who nominated him and paid 55 delegates to the township people's congress 1,000 yuan (US$127) each in return for their votes.

 

The CPC brought some of these scandals to light earlier this year hoping to deter similar corrupt practices in the upcoming elections. Most of the transgressors were expelled from the Party forthwith.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2006)