Smooth, honest election of NPC deputies a priority

A priority for China's top legislature this year is to ensure the smooth and honest election of deputies to the next National People's Congress, the top legislator said on Wednesday.

Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the 12th NPC Standing Committee, said electing deputies is the foundation of the people's congress system and is of great importance for consolidating the Communist Party of China's position as the governing party.

"We will provide guidance to electoral bodies to help them organize elections well and study the lessons learned from the voting fraud case in Liaoning province," he said while making a work report to about 3,000 national legislators.

"Through a combination of strict preventive measures and disciplinary regulations, (we must) ensure the right direction is maintained in elections and that the elections are conducted honestly," he said.

NPC deputies serve a term of five years. The current NPC, elected in 2013, will reshuffle early next year.

A large-scale election fraud shocked the nation last year, with 45 NPC deputies elected from Liaoning being disqualified in September for buying votes in the 2013 election. Another 523 deputies to the provincial congress of Liaoning who were involved in the fraud also resigned or were disqualified.

According to the draft of a method for electing deputies to the 13th NPC, the total number of new deputies will be no more than 3,000. The election will be completed in January next year.

There should be 36 deputies from Hong Kong and 12 from Macao, according to the draft method for election of deputies to the 13th NPC from the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Wang Chen, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said there should be a larger proportion of new deputies from the grassroots, such as workers, farmers and skilled professionals, than in the 12th NPC. There should also be more women and fewer officials.

According to the NPC website, the 12th NPC has 401 deputies who are farmers or workers, 13.4 percent of the total. Skilled professionals account for 20.4 percent of the total.

Additionally, the number of deputies to the 12th NPC who are officials of the Party and government agencies account for 34.9 percent of the total.

Hu Baosen, an NPC deputy from Henan province, said the only way to prevent election scandal is to strictly follow the election method and increase transparency.

"It is also important to have people from different walks of life as NPC deputies," he said.

Contact the writers at suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn