Former legislator jailed for bribery that tainted election

A former senior legislator in Northeast China's Liaoning province has been sentenced to three years and six months in prison for election malpractice and bribery, a court in Shandong province said on Monday.

Zheng Yuzhuo, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of the Liaoning Provincial People's Congress, was sentenced at the Zibo Intermediate People's Court in Shandong, and was also fined 200,000 yuan ($29,000).

His ill-gotten money was confiscated and delivered to the State treasury, according to the court's statement on its micro blog.

Zheng, 61, offered mobile phones as bribes to senior officials of the congress and took advantage of his position as head of the province's financial department to ask subordinates to buy votes for him, from the end of 2012 to early 2013, in a move to become deputy head of the congress, the court said.

His harm to the election involved 76 deputies to provincial congresses in 11 cities across the province.

"The situation was serious and brought negative effects to society," the court said.

In late 2012, Zheng also asked for 30 mobile phones, worth a total of 156,000 yuan, from Sun Yaomin, former director of the financial department in the province's Tieling city, when Zheng was the head of the provincial financial authority, it added.

"As a government official, Zheng bought votes, offered and accepted bribes for the election - which seriously undermined the election process - and committed the crime of election malpractice and bribery," it said in the judgment. But his confession and the fact that he returned all of his illegal gains were factors in getting a more lenient penalty, it added.

Zheng was prosecuted on Jan 26, and pleaded guilty when the trial opened.

China's top legislature has expressed zero tolerance for electoral bribery, disqualifying 45 national legislators from Liaoning for involvement in election fraud in 2013. In September, it was disclosed that 523 deputies to the provincial congress were involved.

Li Xi, Party chief of Liaoning, said during the two sessions in March that the province had paid attention to the scandal and strengthened election rules at the provincial, city and county levels, "aiming to prevent similar incidents and ensuring the ongoing elections are clean and upright".

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/09/2017 page5)