The Constitution states that an election must take place every five years at the NPC plenary meeting which is set to convene in early March. This year the meeting is scheduled on March 5.

The meeting will involve a secret ballot to elect a grand chief judge to be president of the Supreme People's Court and a grand chief prosecutor to be president of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

It will also elect State leaders including the country's president and vice-president, the chairman of the Central Military Commission as well as chairman, vice-chairmen, secretary-general and members of the NPC Standing Committee.

The roster of candidates will be proposed by the presidium of the NPC plenary meeting and be deliberated on by all NPC deputies, according to the Rules of Procedure for the NPC, which were adopted and took effect in 1989. The presidium will hammer out the final list of candidates based on the opinion of the majority of the NPC deputies, the rule states.

All leaders except the members of the NPC Standing Committee will be elected in a single-candidate poll.

The members of the NPC Standing Committee have been elected in a multi-candidate election since 1988 with 5 percent of the candidates failing in every election, said Wang Shihu, vice-director of the Administrative Legislation Department with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee.

In the secret ballot, the NPC deputies can vote for or against the candidates, abstain from voting or propose another candidate, Wang said.

In addition to the election, the NPC plenary meeting will also decide on the nomination of the members of the State Council, the nation's top administrative power, and vice-chairmen and members of the Central Military Commission.

The elected president will nominate the premier -- the head of the State Council -- who will later nominate other members of the State Council.

The candidates of the vice-chairmen and members of the Central Military Commission are decided by the top legislative body.

All candidates can win election or nomination only when he or she gets affirmative votes from more than half of the NPC deputies, according to the rule.

The Second Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China came out with a list of proposed candidates for leading official positions of government bodies on Wednesday. The list is expected to be recommended to the first plenary meeting of the 10th NPC.

(China Daily February 28, 2003)