MCLC: Wukan villagers vote

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Wukan villagers vote
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (2/1/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/asia/residents-vote-in-chinese-vill
age-at-center-of-protest.html

Residents Vote in Chinese Village at Center of Protest
By ANDREW JACOBS 

BEIJING ‹ Less than two months after staging a bold protest against
official corruption and chasing away their local leaders, thousands of
people in the southern Chinese village of Wukan did something many had
once thought unimaginable: they cast their first ostensibly independent
votes on Wednesday in a first step to determine the leadership of their
seaside village in Guangdong Province.

The voting in Wukan for an 11-member electoral committee marked the
peaceful denouement of a revolt that had drawn heavily armed security
personnel, and a large contingent of foreign reporters, to the village in
a standoff that in many Chinese villages might have ended badly.

The 11-day confrontation was defused in late December after senior
Communist Party officials from the provincial capital reached an agreement
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/wukan-china-protesters-agree-
to-halt-demonstrations.html> with Wukan¹s self-appointed leaders,
promising free elections and an investigation into the questionable real
estate deals that locals claim have robbed Wukan of much of its arable
land. The officials also agreed to fully investigate the death of Xue
Jinbo, the 42-year-old village leader who died in police custody, and to
release his body for burial.

In another unexpected victory for the town¹s 13,000 residents, the local
Communist Party last month selected one of the protest leaders
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/asia/protest-leader-becomes-party-
boss-in-chinese-village-that-rebelled.html> to be Wukan¹s party secretary.

Wang Yang, the Guangdong Province party chief who helped orchestrate an
end to the confrontation, described Wukan¹s agitation as a quest for
fairness. The newspaper People¹s Daily, the mouthpiece of the party,
upheld the resolution as a potential model for officials managing the
tensions ‹ and distrust ‹ that plague villages across China.

³This tells us that local government must have a keen awareness of
prevailing conditions in facing the interest demands of the masses, even
if these involve tension and conflict,² the newspaper said in December.

But some of the government¹s promises have been harder to fulfill.
Officials say that they are still looking into a decade¹s worth of land
sales, and they are said to have refused to release
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/asia/wukan-protesters-seek-return-
of-xue-jinbos-body.html> Mr. Xue¹s body until his family signs a statement
saying that he died of natural causes, relatives said. While the family
has been offered generous compensation, it has refused to sign the
statement, insisting that Mr. Xue succumbed to torture while he was being
interrogated in December.

Despite the frustration of not being able to bury her father, Xue Jianwan,
his 22-year-old daughter, expressed relief Wednesday that the election
promised by provincial officials had taken place.

³All of us in Wukan share the belief that this election marks a
significant moment for our village,² she said by telephone. ³It¹s the
first transparent election we¹ve had in decades, a first step towards true
democracy.²

The election on Wednesday by Wukan¹s 4,000 voters was for an election
committee that will be charged with overseeing another ballot on March 1
to determine the village leadership.

Although some analysts have described the Wukan election as a watershed
moment that could influence other villages in rural China others were
skeptical about the long-term prospects for democracy given the Communist
Party¹s undiluted hold on power.

Local elections for the committees that manage sanitation, social welfare
and other daily matters in thousands of Chinese villages are not new in
China, but they are generally viewed as flawed. Party officials often
determine who ends up on the ballot or stage-manage the voting. Once
elected, committee members can be easily swayed by the money that readily
flows from township and county-level party offices.

Li Fan, an election expert at the World and China Institute in Beijing,
thought the best one could hope for was an uncompromised election in
Wukan. ³It should be better given that all the media is watching,² he
said. ³If it is a good election, that will be unusual for China.²

But Lin Jiang, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said he
hoped that the once-belligerent fishing village could serve as a
high-profile counterpoint to those who argue that democracy is ill-suited
for China¹s rural citizenry. ³Peasants in China may be undereducated but
the election in Wukan shows that just because you don¹t have a good
education, doesn¹t mean you can¹t elect officials to represent your
interests,² he said.

Shi Da contributed research.