TAIPEI, Oct. 25
The Chinese Communist Party announced with some fanfare that it would hold "contested elections" for the Central Party Committee members at its 17th National Congress. In fact, the list of nominees was presented by Zeng Qinghong, secretary-general of the Congress, to a meeting of its presiding committee on the afternoon of Oct. 17, according to Xinhua, the official news agency.
The CCP has not had very pleasant experiences with contested elections in the past. Deng Liqun, called the "king of the leftists," was unexpectedly eliminated from the Central Party Committee at the 13th Party Congress in 1987. As a consequence, this type of election was abandoned at the 14th Congress, after the Tiananmen crackdown on June 4, 1989. At the 16th Congress of 2002, contested elections were resumed, as an indication that progress was being made toward "socialist democracy" and "intra-Party democracy."
Now President Hu Jintao is stressing the need to further develop intra-Party democracy. Thus, before the Congress it was announced that the number of nominees this time would be 10-15 percent higher than the number of seats, increasing the number to be eliminated. At the last Congress, only 5 percent of those on the list had to be eliminated. However it is said there was some dispute over this within the innermost circles. (Editor's note: In fact, the CCP announced after the 17th Congress that there were 8 percent "extra" candidates on the nominee list.)
Half of the Central Party Committee members are new faces this time. There were also a lot of new delegates to the Congress this time, as well as some old faces. The new faces are those who obtained benefits because of Hu and have become part of his "interest group". Certainly they will support Hu and reject the vested interests of the old guard. So from now on whenever there is voting, Hu will probably win. This is the No. 1 strategy for the young generation of leaders to defeat the old vested interests by voting in the Congress or the Central Committee. Hu surely understood this.
Under such circumstances, the greater the difference between the number of seats and the number of nominees, the higher the chance that old faces would be eliminated from the Central Committee. Those to be eliminated would be all the famous figures. Intra-Party democracy does not allow candidates to campaign, so delegates are only familiar with those from their own province or department, and with those who hold high positions. Therefore, they would not eliminate unknown names. The delegates would just strike out the celebrities they dislike -- the Youth League faction would eliminate the Shanghai Gang and vice versa. Thus Hu might win the advantage.
However, no matter how high the discrepancy between seats and winners in the contested election, the name list was provided by the top authorities anyway. No one not on the list could be elected. Still, in order to avoid losing control, the authorities decided to have a "preliminary election" to find out who might be eliminated. The result might have been more interesting if the delegates had done what voters in Taiwan did -- refusing to comment or giving an opinion opposite their real one to pollsters before elections.
According to media reports from Hong Kong and Japan, the names of Zeng Qinghong, Wu Guanzheng and Luo Gan were not on the suggested name list, making it clear that they would not remain on the Politburo's Standing Committee. It is worth mentioning that Zeng proved his political intelligence by not asking to be reappointed -- it's enough that he has people on the committee to speak for him, so why bother to be reelected and then be criticized?
The names of Jia Qinglin and Li Changchun were on the list, which means they wanted to remain in office. If they had been eliminated in the election for the Central Party Committee, like the surprise that came to Deng Liqun, they would have been really humiliated. Jia Qinglin is a great representative of money politics and corruption in the CCP and an accomplice of smuggler Lai Changxing. Nevertheless, Jia was reappointed. This leads one to conclude that Hu Jintao's anti-corruption campaign should be thrown into the trash bin.
There is no way to confirm whether or not there was a contested election for the Politburo or its Standing Committee. Possibly not, or it would have been more interesting. That would have been a real battle of power between Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin.
The CCP would never reveal the number of ballots cast for the members of the Central Committee, because it might embarrass those who won fewer ballots. It might also embarrass the Party, for those who won the least ballots might turn out to be exactly those chosen for the Politburo and the Standing Committee.
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(Paul Lin is a well-known commentator on politics and an expert on Chinese Communist Party history. He is a former editor whose columns have appeared in major newspapers in the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This article is translated and edited from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online; the original can be found at www.ncn.org. ©Copyright Paul Lin.)
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