Chinese village gets rare taste of democracy

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WUKAN, (China), March 3: (AFP): A Chinese village that rebelled against corrupt Communist leaders went to the polls Saturday in a contested election seen as a landmark for those seeking more democracy in the one-party state.
The vote for the committee governing Wukan went ahead with official approval after a long campaign by local people to end what they say was years of abuse of power by their leaders.
Although village elections are common in China's rural areas, candidates are typically put forward by authorities and often run unopposed, unlike the poll in Wukan, in which 21 contenders stood for seven committee slots.
The vote came months after residents of Wukan, in the southern province of Guangdong, rose up against authorities in a bold revolt, driving out the local officials they said had been stealing their land for years.
After a tense stand-off with police in December that lasted over a week, authorities in Guangdong, which borders China's semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong, granted villagers rare concessions, including pledges to hold free polls.
A carnival atmosphere prevailed in Wukan on Saturday with mothers carrying their babies and elderly women tottering to the ballot box to cast their votes.
Villagers formed long lines outside makeshift voting booths in the playground of a local school to write up to seven names on a paper slip before placing it in a metal box.
"They've given us a democratic election, I'm so happy," villager Zhang Bingchang said as he waited to vote.
At the end of the election, organisers announced more than 6,800 people-over 81 percent of registered voters-went to the polls and volunteers began the arduous task of counting ballots, with results expected later Saturday.
They put large orange boards up against the walls of the school, and marked each vote with a small line under the name of the chosen candidate, occasionally calling for more volunteers to help out as villagers looked on.
Some analysts say the handling of the incident could be a model for how the government can manage local disputes.
Wang Yukai, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance which trains civil servants, said Wukan offered a new possibility for social management.
"By channelling rather than checking, a mass outcry could be pacified," Wang told state media last month.
But other analysts dismiss the Wukan outcome as a one-off incident which occurred at a time Guangdong's head Wang Yang is seeking to raise his profile, as he jockeys to ascend to China's top decision-making body.