Li Baoku, vice-minister of civil affairs, said thousands of residents in several cities elected their community councils and leading council officials for the first time on the Chinese mainland in 2001.

The cities include Shanghai, Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province, Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, and Guilin, a city famous for its scenic karst landscape in southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua News Agency reported.

In a circular issued at the end of last year, the central government urged cities across the country to reform the community management system by setting up self-governing organizations through democratic elections.

Gu Yingchun, a sociologist, said, "The move is conducive to promoting the construction of an urban political system."

"What's more important is that the practice of direct election has been expanded from rural China to the urban part of the country, resulting in the expansion of the grassroots democracy in China and an important breakthrough in China's construction of democratic politics," Gu said.

During a recent community-level election in Jingfang community in Hangzhou, a 15-member council, a five-member community committee and head of the committee were elected out of 39 candidates by secret ballot.

The candidates in Jinfang, the only community selected from Zhejiang Province to hold such an election, were chosen by an election committee made up of local urban residents.

Before the votes were cast, several hundred residents gathered at a local primary school, where each of the six smiling but apparently nervous candidates made a three-minute campaign speech on what they would do for the community if elected.

They were competing for the post of the head of the Jingfang Community Committee, a job described last year by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji as the "prime minister" of a community.

Nearly 80 percent of the families in the community, or 1,280 households to be exact, voted during the election and the results were announced on the spot.

Feng Zirong, a 66-year-old retired worker, said the poll demonstrated respect for the will of the residents.

According to a local regulation, the head of the neighborhood committee must report each month to the community council on the work of the committee.

Bao Hong, a 63-year-old retired engineer and member of the council, said the officials of the committee used to be appointed by the higher authorities and reported only to them.

The experience of casting votes for community leaders may be a novelty for about 400 million urban residents, but not for their 900 million rural counterparts.

Wang Jinhua, an official in charge of community elections with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said farmers began to elect village leaders as early as 1988, and almost all of the 730,000 villages have elected heads of village committees.

(eastday.com December 13, 2001)