More grassroots seats at Party congress

said Wang Jingqing, deputy head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

Wang said grassroots Party members include miners, factory workers, bus drivers, environmental protection workers, medical personnel and bank clerks.

Moreover, 26 out of the 692 are migrant workers.

“The deputies represent the excellence of the Party, as well as the public’s interests,” said Wang.

According to Wang Guixiu, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, officials used to occupy 70 to 80 percent of the seats and would tend to turn the congress into a “Party officials’ convention”.

Cui Xiangqian, 41, one of the grassroots deputies from Southwest China’s Guizhou province, said she was “thrilled when she was elected”.

She works as a community worker at Bihai community in Guiyang, the provincial capital.

Enlisting someone like her “reflects democracy inside the Party”, she said.

“The increasing number of grassroots deputies shows the Party’s willingness to hear the voices of all walks of life and voices of people at different levels.”

The latest official figure shows the Party had 82.6 million members by the end of 2011. A total of 2,270 deputies will attend the 18th CPC National Congress to be held later this year.

The oldest deputy is 96-year-old Jiao Ruoyu, former mayor of Beijing, while the youngest is 22- year- old Jiao Liuyang, a women’s 200m butterfly gold medalist at the London Olympic Games. Contact the writers at wanghuazhong@chinadaily.com. cn and yangjun@chinadaily. com.cn Wu Yong in Shenyang contributed to this story.