Unlike their predecessors, most Chinese mayors are now elected once
they are made known to the public, with attention paid to their
education as well as their competence in leadership. This reform,
though having resistance, is taking place quietly.
According to Zhang Liyong, Xianyang is the "best place in the
world." He said this while attending the First Session of the 10th
National People's Congress (NPC) which began in Beijing on March
5.
Last December, Zhang was elected mayor of Xianyang, a historical
city north west of Xi'an, in Shaanxi Province. Ten years ago he was
transferred from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to Qindu District, Xianyang
City to serve as secretary of the district's Party committee.
He
is one of the local mayors in the country's 313 cities at
prefectural level, of which elections finished prior to the First
Session of the 10th NPC. Presently most of these mayors are in
Beijing attending the annual NPC session.
In
contrast to their predecessors, most of the mayors were publicly
announced before being formally nominated as candidates for the
posts after a lengthy period of inspection.
Liu Huiyan, mayor of Zibo in Shandong, was an experimental subject
under another cadre nomination system reform. Last summer, newly
re-elected leaders of the province made a decision that any
newly-nominated candidates for local government, or its departments
directly under the province, would be decided by votes taken by
members of provincial Party committee instead of by direct
appointment. Liu was elected in such a manner. This truly is
reform.
The new mayors carried the weight of the election process for the
very first time.
Luo Bisheng, mayor of Yueyang City, Hunan Province, was not
re-elected in the single-candidate election for local governor
earlier this year. He was the first to taste this kind of failure
but was luckier the second time round.
New mayors are generally thought to be young and educated. Most of
them being less than 50 have college degrees and some higher
degrees also.
Twenty years ago, the young and educated cadres, or Party members,
went straight from the grass roots to important posts within the
Party or in government organizations, in light of a then new cadre
appointment system that gave preference to the young, educated and
revolutionary. But aged cadres with poor education were promoted
again at a later stage.
Many years ago a young employee with a provincial government said,
"I want to continue to study for a master's degree once I graduate
but many of my colleagues persuaded me otherwise. They said I would
be an intellectual,' and of course, intellectual' is not a good
thing to be."
Resistance to reform can be imagined in this way. Some educational
achievements were devalued then and cadres with poor education
received valid work experience but later also degrees that may now
have less than due credibility. Today, reform stipulates that the
only valid qualification is that received through regular
education. Some local cadres are less than happy.
With further huge resistance to this reform, new local cadre
elections were completed in time of the First Session of the 10th
NPC. And in contrast to the elections almost 20 years ago, the new
reform has not been done in the glare of publicity either at the
start of its conclusion.
What the ordinary person saw on their TV or in their newspapers
this time round were publicity shots and brief introductions. No
fanfare but quiet.
(China.org.cn by Liu Yuming, March 17, 2003)