Sun Guoqing cannot hide his excitement at the mention of the historic election 23 years ago that made him the village head and changed his life.

The 59-year-old farmer in Laobeihao Village in northeast China's Jilin Province was the country's first local official elected through "haixuan", or literally "sea election", which gave each villager an opportunity to nominate a particular person he or she trusts. In the previous system, candidates were usually nominated by the superiors.

"For the first time, the villagers could search for their own pearl in the vast sea rather than being given the pearl," said Sun.

Sun finally won the election with a landslide victory, which he attributed to his "more years of education and zest to serve his fellow villagers."

"I support haixuan, which opens the competition stage to all," he said. "We have benefited a lot from the democracy."

Now a retiree, Sun is active in promoting the grassroots democracy in his village. He helped explain the election rules to his fellow villagers and supervise the village election, which takes place every three years in the country.

Laobeihao's haixuan practice has provided experience for the nationwide village election. The principle that villagers should exercise their rights in directly electing their village leaders has already been incorporated into the Organization Law of Village Committee, which was enacted in 1988. The law introduced the practice of self-administration and direct elections at village levels.

"Such elections is an important form of grassroots democracy, " said Prof. Xu Yong with Huazhong Normal University. "The democracy in textbooks has been brought to real life."

Statistics showed that China's grassroots democracy is improving in the rural areas, where about 70 percent of the country's population lives.

As of 2008, almost every Chinese village has set up an election village committee, a mass organization of self-management comprising local villagers. More than 95 percent of these village committees have conducted direct election. Out of the 18 provinces that staged village elections in the rural areas in 2008, 16 tried out haixuan.

But Sun, who should have been pleased at the progresses, said he had felt something different.

"The village committee election is not as pure as it was 20 years ago," he said. "More or less, it's affected by other factors."

Sun's observation was justified by a recently circular issued by China's central authorities, urging fair play in direct elections of village heads amid complaints of bribery and other dirty tricks to win votes.

"The village committee election work in some rural areas is not properly conducted as the bribery situation is grave and seriously harms the impartiality of election," said the circular jointly issued by the General Office of the State Council and the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

"Currently, the country's rural areas are experiencing fresh reform and farmers' ideas are also undergoing deep changes, " said the circular.

"Improving the work of election will help ensure villagers to practice their rights and develop grassroots democracy."

"The circular is very timely and candidates' behaviors are strictly regulated," said Li Chenggui, head of the center for rural policy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Scandals, such as bribery in the village election, are the pain that the democracy has to suffer in its development," said Prof. Wang Wei with National School of Administration.

"Regardless, the country's grassroots democracy trudges on," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2009)