Granting Equality

The latest amendment to the Electoral Law attempts to bridge the urban-rural gap and make advancements toward China’s socialist democracy

By YIN PUMIN

An amendment to the Electoral Law of the National People’s Congress and Local People’s Congresses of the People’s Republic of China granting equal representation in legislative bodies to rural and urban people was ratified by the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, on March 14.

The amendment is paramount to improving the people’s congress system and developing China’s socialist democracy, as it can further demonstrate equality among people, regions and ethnic groups, said Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee Wang Zhaoguo.

The amendment was approved with 2,747 votes from 2,909 NPC deputies present at the closing meeting of the Third Session of the 11th NPC.

Time for change

Discussion over a draft amendment to the Electoral Law had been set aside for the annual session of the NPC for a third reading on March 8.

The first and second deliberations were held at the bimonthly legislative sessions of the 11th NPC Standing Committee in October and December last year.

It is the fi fth amendment to the Electoral Law since the law was completely revised in 1979.

Unprecedentedly, the amendment grants equal representation in legislative bodies to China’s rural and urban people, said Wang.

The change was made to fi x imbalances in lawmaking representative elections, said Han Dayuan, a Chinese Constitution law professor with the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

After the amendment in 1995, the law stipulated that each rural deputy represented a population four times that of an urban deputy. Critics said this could be interpreted as“farmers only enjoy a quarter of the suffrage of their urban counterparts.”

According to official calculations, this means some 960,000 rural people are represented by one NPC deputy, while 240,000 urban residents enjoy the same, single deputy representation, Han said.

The imbalance in representation among lawmakers started in 1953, when the first version of the Electoral Law was adopted, Han said. The law then stipulated that every 800,000 people would have one NPC deputy, but in municipalities and cities with a population of more than 500,000, every 100,000 people could have a NPC deputy.

The number of people represented by each rural NPC deputy at that time was eight times that represented by each urban deputy,Han said.

“Such stipulations were absolutely necessary and conformed with China’s political system and the particular situation at that time,” Wang said.

According to the 1953 national census,the urban population made up only 13.26 percent. Since the rural population far outnumbered that of the cities, an equal ratio of rural-urban representation could have resulted in an excessive number of rural deputies.

Now, with rapid urbanization and rural economic development, the urban population proportion has increased to 46.6 percent as of last year, a substantial boost from 29.04 percent in 1995, Wang said,adding that people’s congresses at all levels have gone through many electoral terms,accumulating a wealth of experience and knowledge.

“The actual conditions are in place for revising the Electoral Law and electingdeputies to the people’s congresses based on the same population ratio in urban and rural areas,” he said.

Equal rights

Electing deputies based on the same population ratio in urban and rural areas refl ects equality among people, Wang said.

Wang said that ethnic groups with the smallest population must also have one deputy in order to re fl ect equality among ethnic groups.

“We cannot emphasize any one of them while ignoring the others,” he said, adding appropriate consideration should be given to those regions where representative fi gures in all sectors of society are relatively concentrated.

The law does not specify the exact population a lawmaker would represent and the top legislature will decide the specific ratio in the near future.

Cai Dingjian, Director of the Constitution Research Center with the China University of Political Science and Law, said the realization of the equal rights between urban and rural areas will have a major impact on distribution of deputy quotas.

“For example, quotas for Beijing and Shanghai, which have a small rural population, may decrease while the quotas for big rural provinces, such as Sichuan and Anhui,may increase,” he said.

He said the revision, considered major progress in the development of democracy in China, would help increase the number of farmer deputies to the NPC.

“The equality of political rights will lay the foundation for equality of many other rights,such as economic rights, educational rights and social and cultural rights,” Cai said.

Farmer deputies are more familiar with the situation in the countryside and the change will help the top legislature better understand rural areas and make more scienti fi c decisions, said Xu Anbiao, a member of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the NPC Standing Committee.

However, experts mentioned that although the amendment grants equal electoral rights to people across the country, it does not necessarily mean there would be the same number of farmer deputies as urban deputies in the NPC.

“The change will help increase the number of farmer deputies, but it will not necessarily result in parity,” said Chen Sixi,a member of the NPC Standing Committee.

He said as the election of people’s congress deputies is based on household registered population, it is possible for a rural election district to elect a non-farmer deputy,as the candidates could be business people or workers who still have their household registered in the rural area.

“But this could be further improved in the future with the reform of China’s household registration system,” Chen said.

Further revisions

The amendment stipulates that the number of grassroots deputies of farmers,workers and intellectuals should be guaranteed.

Currently, a large number of legislators in China are government of fi cials and entrepreneurs, leaving few seats for farmers and workers.

Cai analyzed the composition of the 10th NPC (2003-07). Among the 2,988 delegates,more than 1,200 were government of fi cials,some 600 were business delegates, while only around 80 were rural deputies, accounting for 3 percent of the total.

The amendment adds the election committee must organize more face-to-face contacts between candidates and electors to allow deputy candidates to introduce themselves and answer voters’ questions.

Mo Jihong, a Constitution professor with the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said it is a step forward from the 2004 amendment, which stipulated that an election committee “should arrange”a meeting for candidates and voters, but didn’t make such arrangements compulsory.

“The amendment allows voters more liberties to interact with deputies and choose their ideal candidates,” Mo said.

On violations of statutory procedures in primary-level elections, the amendment clari fi es that “elections of lawmakers shall be subject to supervision.”

It also states family members or close relatives of candidates should not be permitted to act as balloting scrutinizers and tally clerks in the elections of deputies to people’s congresses.

Under the amendment, the setup of polling stations, convening election meetings and the management of mobile polling boxes should be further standardized and improved.It also suggests setting up “con fi dential polling booths.”

Violence, threats, corruption and other acts that disrupt elections should also be investigated and punished.

The number of deputies to the NPC is limited to within 3,000, the distribution of which is decided by the NPC Standing Committee, according to the law.

The law states a list of candidates to a people’s congress must be made public 20 days before the election and officially announced five days before the election.

Electors may vote for or against or abstain from voting, or vote for people other than the candidates. Candidates who stand for election as deputies to a people’s congress can be deemed elected “if they receive more than half of the votes.”

Population in limbo

While trying to bring rural-urban representation into balance, the amendment did not address the country’s fl oating population.

“The household registration system reform is proceeding but the conditions are not yet in place to solve this issue,” Wang said.

The fl oating population is a very complicated group. Statistics show migrant workers are often indifferent to elections.

The weak link between elections and their interest contributes to their standstill to vote. A lack of education and poor living conditions also affect migrants’ ability to participate in elections, as some can’t even spare the time to vote, Chen said.

“At present, it’s hard to work out a general rule for securing the fl oating population’s electoral rights,” he said.

China’s voter registration system requires voters to register and cast their votes,and to be elected in the same place as their hukou (residence permit).

“Although China’s law permits the fl oating population to cast their votes in their place of actual residence as long as they get certi fi cates of quali fi cation from their original residence, they don’t like to return home just for a certi fi cate that costs them time and money,” Chen said.

Another issue arises from the time and work needed to manage the registration of migrants, he said.

“Missing registrations and duplicate registrations can hardly be avoided when it comes to the fl oating population, as different parts of China have different levels of development of information management and communications,” Chen said.

Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said in January 2010 that China has about 180 million people who work and live outside of their hometown. ■

“The realization of the equal rights between urban and rural areas will have a major impact on distribution of deputy quotas.”

—Cai Dingjian, Director of the Constitution Research Center with the China University of Political Science and Law