Nearly 100,000 officials of the ruling Communist Party's committees at provincial, municipal, county and township levels are facing re-election in 2006-2007 period. Public opinion will become the major measure for selecting the new CPC cadres.

The information was released by He Guoqiang, Head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee at the on-going Fourth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC).

The large-scale re-election of the CPC's local leading cadres, which will set out an  important personnel foundation for the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to be held in 2007, will adopt a new cadre appraisal system which focuses on cadre's popularity with the people rather than their efforts to pursue GDP growth.

In the past years GDP growth was the most important way of appraising local cadres causing some of them to blindly pursue GDP growth while failing to let ordinary people enjoy the benefits of economic development. Some local governments even became saddled with debt due to excessive economic expansion.

"The change of the cadre appraisal method demonstrates the important shift of the work priority of the ruling Communist Party and the government," said Gao Xinmin, professor of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee He added, "The new cadre appraisal system will bring far-reaching changes to local cadre's style of work."

The new appraisal system will include such things as public opinion polls, analysis of political achievements, face-to-face discussions and comprehensive assessments, according to an official from the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

The new cadre appraisal system has been put into operation on a trial basis in provinces and autonomous regions like Zhejiang, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. Up to now a total of 12,117 cadres have participated in the public opinion poll.

Chen Lina, an NPC deputy and a Doctor at the Central Hospital of the Lishui City, east China's Zhejiang Province, where the new cadre appraisal system was put on trial, said "In the past ordinary people were accustomed to listening and obeying leading cadre's instructions but nowadays we have the right to 'a say' in the selection of cadres".

During the reshuffle of the city's Party committee a public opinion poll was conducted and the result, which was released to the news media, brought about a change in the final candidate list of major cadre posts.

Lou Yangsheng, NPC Deputy and Secretary of the Lishui Municipal Committee of the CPC, said the new appraisal system forced cadres to pay much more attention to the lives of ordinary people. And the cadres, who were selected in line with the new appraisal method, were better equipped to take care of ordinary people and capable of dealing with complex social problems.

Song Fufan, Professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said the new appraisal method showed full respect for citizen's rights to understand, participate in political affairs, to select officials and to contribute to governmental affairs. The cadre appointment system had shifted away from the decision of a small number of officials to something based on the views of a majority of people.

Introducing public opinion as one of the important criteria for cadre selection also helped fight corruption. In the past cadres had sought connections with higher ranking officials and it has been said that bribes were used to secure promotion. The new cadre appraisal method will help tighten the public supervision over the CPC cadre re-election.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)