Ballot bribery
Village head elections marred by corruption, local tyrants abusing their position
Chinese netizens were surprised to learn that a village chief candidate surnamed Dai, from Tiantai county, East China’s Zhejiang Province, was banned from running in the local election because he tried to attract votes by giving 100 yuan ($ 14.5) each to 60 villagers.
Many people argued his punishment was too harsh as 100 yuan is not a big money and cannot “buy” voters. However, the local disciplinary authorities deemed that Dai should be disqualified as any kind of cash gift counts as a “bribe” in this context, regardless of its size.
“Bribing voters will greatly damage democracy and Dai may be copied by others. If [ we] did not stop it, it would influence future elections,” a village official was quoted by the Xinhua News Agency as saying.
Dai was detained for seven days and fined 500 yuan on February 6, said Xinhua.
This incident has once again brought corruption in grass- roots elections into the spotlight. Experts pointed out that combating bribery in village elections is of great importance to the nationwide anti- graft campaign, and more importantly it is an effective way to defeat local bullies and clannish politics.
Cash and clans
The principle that villagers should directly elect their village’s leaders was introduced in 1988’ s Village Committee Organization Law.
As of 2008, almost every Chinese village has a village committee, a selfmanagement organization made up of local villagers. More than 95 percent of these village committees have held direct elections.
However media reports and posts on online forums have for years revealed foul play in elections for village heads including bribery and a multitude of other dirty tricks to win votes.
Several villagers across the country reached by the Global Times on Wednesday said that village head candidates are usually those who have a close relationship with senior local officials or those from a “powerful family.” Bribery is an open secret and has been totally normalized.
A villager surnamed Yao from Longyan, East China’s Fujian Province said that years ago, a village chief candidate offered her money to come back
from a city to vote him. While she did not come back, she asked her mother to vote for the candidate and was given 150 yuan.
A villager surnamed Jin from Zhenjiang, East China’s Jiangsu Province said that the cost of winning an election is less than 100,000 yuan but any expenditure can be recouped through the opportunities for graft on offer.
Jin admitted that he did not know any of the candidates and he has never seen the poll results.
Yao revealed that some big “clans” usually compete for the post but she has never heard of anyone going to the authorities about the bribery.
“If someone attempted to blow the whistle, they may be cursed by the other villagers, as elections are a kind of win- win cooperation,” said Yao.
“As China’s village is ‘ a society of acquaintances’ and its economic development has relied on big families for years, it is very hard to implement policies from the central government and villagers usually don’t think much about supervision,” Du Zhizhou, an anti- corruption expert from Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times.
“China should enhance its education of villagers on the dangers of bribery in elections. For instance, it could lead to the creation of village tyrants and eventually harm their own interests. Representative cases should be spread widely to encourage them to actively file a report. Moreover, the government should strengthen its protection of whistle- blowers,” said Du.
Targeting protectors
In January, China’s top prosecutors issued several guidelines to crack down on village tyrants and clan domination to promote the rule of law and safeguard stability in rural areas.
The guideline severely criticized village tyrants for manipulating elections, inciting violence and oppressing villagers, while pledging that prosecutors at all levels would target the people who protect them.
In 2013, Liu Huimin, former village chief of Qilizhuang village, North China’s Hebei Province, was sentenced to death for embezzling over 70 million yuan of public funds, beating up villagers, destroying farmland and blackmailing construction firms.
“It is not unusual to see some village heads, who cannot resist the temptation of wealth and power, turn into tyrants. Its also common that tyrants helped by some authorities of higher levels, sneak their way into a position of power. Therefore, apart from encouraging tip- offs, the country could also set up a blacklist, which forbids officials who have protected tyrants from being promoted,” said Du.
Du added that higher authorities could hire law enforcement from other cities to guarantee the transparency of elections and encourage local officials to curb village tyrants by including the achievement as an important index for their promotion.