HANDFUL OF INDEPENDENTS WIN TICKETS TO CHINA'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIJING 024246

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/01/2031
TAGS: PGOV CH
SUBJECT: HANDFUL OF INDEPENDENTS WIN TICKETS TO CHINA'S
DEMOCRATIC THEATER OF THE ABSURD

REF: A. BEIJING 22633


B. BEIJING 23629

Classified By: Classified by Political Internal Unit Chief Susan Thornt
on.
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) Although Beijing's popular elections for local
people's congresses on November 8 were hailed by the
Chinese media as a democratic triumph, they appear to have
been a highly orchestrated effort that left little to
chance. At a pre-election neighborhood meeting between
candidates and prospective voters, and at a polling station
on voting day, poloffs found the atmosphere to be festive
and local officials eager to explain the elections'
"democratic" procedures. In reality, according to several
Embassy contacts, most of the races in Beijing were rigged.
"Elite shareholders" in the Chinese political system,
including Party cadres, local leaders, and wealthy
businesspeople, colluded to select the vast majority of
"official" candidates and fix election outcomes far in
advance. Despite the long odds, however, more than 100
independent candidates managed to run in the election and
about 20 independent candidates won seats in Beijing's
university areas. In Hubei Province, seven independents
won seats. End Summary.


2. (U) On November 8, over eight million Beijing voters
reportedly cast ballots to choose more than 14,000 deputies
to people's congresses at the district/county and
township/town level throughout Beijing municipality. The
election was one in a series of local people's congress
elections being held nationwide on a rolling basis from now
through the end of 2007 (see Ref A). Poloffs observed two
events associated with the Beijing elections, a November 4
pre-election meeting between candidates and prospective
voters in a western Beijing neighborhood, and voting at a
polling station in central Beijing on November 8. Poloffs'
participation in both events was organized by the Beijing
City Foreign Affairs Office and the Beijing Municipal
People's Congress, and included other Western diplomats and
a large contingent of foreign journalists.

"Official" Candidates: Controlling Who's on the Ballot
-------------- --------------


3. (C) Despite the fact that both events appeared highly
staged, they nevertheless provided an up-close glimpse of
the elaborate laws and procedures governing the elections.
According to Chinese election law, the Party can directly
nominate up to 20 percent of candidates. The rest can be
nominated by any group of 10 or more registered voters.
Even though each race must be "competitive," with more
candidates than seats at stake, the total number of
"official" candidates on the ballot cannot exceed twice the
number of seats. The process of winnowing down the list of
"official" candidates is the Party's primary means of
controlling election outcomes. As the number of candidates
initially nominated often far exceeds the maximum, an
opaque process of "democratic consultation" is used to
reduce the number of candidates and determine which ones
will be "official." Officials could not explain precisely
how the process works, other than to say it is an iterative
process in which a local election committee consults with
local groups, eventually settling upon an outcome
reflecting the will of the "majority" of residents. The
law reportedly allows for a "primary election" to be held
if the official candidates cannot be determined via
consultation, but this rarely, if ever, occurs.

Voters "Interview" Candidates: Canines, Crime, Clutter
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4. (SBU) The November 4 meeting between candidates and
voters was highly stylized, but revealed some of the issues
on local residents' minds. The meeting was held in western
Beijing's Shijingshan District, whose 289,100 registered
voters were to choose representatives for the 185-member
Shijingshan District People's Congress from among 279
official candidates. In the Beili Neighborhood where the
meeting took place, four official candidates were running
for three congress seats, with one nominee having been
eliminated through "democratic consultation." At the
meeting, these candidates introduced themselves and then
took questions from the audience of approximately 150 local
residents. The candidates included the Beili Neighborhood
Party Secretary (who was an incumbent congress deputy and

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formerly worked as an opera singer),a local policeman, the
secretary of the local consumers association and an

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elementary school teacher. All but the policeman were
Party members.


5. (SBU) Residents asked well-rehearsed questions directed
at each of the four candidates in succession, raising
concrete issues such as the controversial new Beijing "one-
dog policy," as well as concerns over neighborhood
security, unpaved streets, the clutter of unregulated
advertisements, the quality of local education and efforts
to help the unemployed. The only part of the event that
didn't run according to script occurred when an elderly man
delivered a lengthy rant about rundown areas of the
neighborhood and the shortcomings of the district people's
congress. After some gentle heckling from discomfited
fellow citizens, local staff retrieved the microphone and
"restored order" to the meeting.

Election Day: Festive Atmosphere at Polling Station
-------------- --------------


6. (SBU) On the morning of the November 8 election day,
poloffs visited a local polling station in a rundown
neighborhood near Beijing Train Station. Local streets
were hastily festooned with red lanterns and large banners
exhorting citizens to exercise their democratic voting
rights. The vast majority of voters were retired, elderly
residents, several dressed in Mao suits, who seemed to
enjoy the opportunity to greet neighbors and get the latest
community gossip. One elderly voter seemed surprised that
he actually knew who the candidates were. He seemed to
take the process seriously and said he hoped someday
Chinese citizens could directly vote for their national
leaders. Another, slightly less well-informed voter
confessed to poloff that he had no idea who the people on
the ballot were and that he came to vote "because he was
told to." Local officials are under pressure to report
high turnout numbers for elections and local officials go
to great lengths to pressure residents into casting their
ballots. For those who refuse to comply, as one source
remarked, "they will simply find a way to vote for you."


7. (SBU) Voting procedures appeared fairly straightforward,
though voters lacked any semblance of privacy when filling
out their ballots. After having their IDs checked against
a list of registered voters, residents were handed a ballot
listing the official candidates. Voters were required to
make a mark next to each candidate's name indicating
whether they supported, or opposed, that candidate. The
ballot also had space for voters to write in a candidate's
name, if none of those on the ballot were acceptable.
Staff were on hand to explain voting procedures and to
assist the infirm. Most voters filled out their ballots at
a table in the center of the room, in full view of all
present, including the press. A few used the "secret
voting station" consisting of a table behind a screen set
up in the corner of the room. Even there, however, privacy
was lacking, as curious onlookers poked their heads over
voters' shoulders and journalists snapped shots of voters
making their decisions. Finally, voters were required to
place their completed ballot in the ornate red and gold
ballot box in the center of the room.

Propaganda Emphasizes Voter Rights
--------------


8. (SBU) Press coverage of the event emphasized China's
"democratic" political system in action. At least 10
Chinese journalists and several cameramen tagged along for
the small Beili Neighborhood candidates meeting, which was
splashed across the front pages of several local papers the
next day and billed as a voter "interview" of the
candidates. On voting day, national media prominently
covered President Hu Jintao and the rest of the Politburo
Standing Committee members voting in their respective
districts in Beijing. Even former President Jiang Zemin
was mentioned as having cast his vote at the Zhongnanhai
leadership compound polling station. Meanwhile, ailing
Executive Vice Premier Huang Ju, currently in Shanghai,
sent a representative to vote for him in Beijing, as is
allowed under the election law. Hu Jintao told reporters
that the people's congress system is the "foundation" of
the country's political system and that his vote enabled
him to exercise the democratic rights bestowed upon him by
the constitution.

Frustrated Activists Cry Foul
--------------


BEIJING 00024246 003 OF 004



9. (C) In contrast to the glowing media coverage of the
elections, elections activists with whom poloffs spoke were
frustrated by official efforts to manipulate outcomes and
harass independent candidates, both in Beijing and across
China. Elections activist and Director of the World and
China Institute Li Fan (strictly protect) told poloff that
at the beginning stages of the campaign in Beijing, when
voters were allowed to make initial nominations of
candidates, "things seemed OK." But, when the final list
of candidates came out, the "democratic consultation"
process had eliminated most of the independents from the
final ballot. The whole process is "just for show," Li
complained.


10. (C) Li related several instances of election
improprieties in Beijing, as well in Shenzhen and Wuhan,
which held their elections earlier this year (Ref A). In
one case, a Beijing local election committee reportedly
held a meeting to inform local groups that it was rejecting
several independent candidates because a "majority" of the
district's residents supported government-recommended
candidates. In another instance, a local elections
committee merely published its final list of candidates,
rejecting all independents, without "consulting" with
anyone. Residents' objections were ignored. Li told
poloff that, in yet another case, a professor and
independent candidate at Beijing Aeronautical University
believed that local authorities, having failed to keep him
off the ballot, resorted to rigging the vote count to keep
him out of the local congress. Li provided poloff with a
long list of elections violations documented in Shenzhen
and Wuhan, ranging from gerrymandering and voter
intimidation to misinformation campaigns designed to
confuse voters and harassment of independent candidates.


11. (C) Separately, Hubei elections activist Yao Lifa
contacted poloff on several occasions to describe the
harassment he and other independent candidates endured
during the run-up to elections held in Qianjiang City,
Hubei Prefecture, that were also held on November 8 (Ref
B). Yao and his independent counterparts were running as
write-in candidates, having already been left off the
ballot. Their only chance of running a successful write-in
campaign was to reach a large number of voters directly,
through speeches or distribution of campaign materials. In
an attempt to disrupt these activities, local police
detained Yao and several others, seizing their campaign
materials and accusing them of behavior that "disrupted the
orderly conduct of elections in accordance with the law."

Independents Win a Handful of Seats
--------------


12. (C) Despite an apparent concerted effort to prevent
independents from running, however, more than 100
independents managed to run in Beijing by going through the
official nomination process and getting on the final
ballot. In Beijing's residential community areas, no
independents were successfully elected, but in the
university districts, approximately 20 candidates
considered to be independents succeeded in winning seats.
Among these, well-known Beijing University law professor Xu
Zhiyong kept the seat that he won as an independent in
elections three years ago. In Hubei Province, of the sixty
independents who mounted campaigns, two won seats on city
level people's congresses and five independents were
elected to township people's congresses. While these
results were disappointing to elections activists, they
took some solace from the show of enthusiasm by
independents (more than 50,000 candidates were nominated in
the initial stage) and the fact that a handful of the races
were not completely controlled.

Pre-Cooked Candidate Lists in Shanghai
--------------


13. (C) The upcoming December 12 people's congress
elections in Shanghai provide one of the clearest examples
of how elections "really work" in China, Li Fan told
poloff. According to Li, Fudan University's election
research center has been given permission to monitor
preparations for the Shanghai elections. The Fudan teams
reportedly have discovered that the final lists of
candidates for almost all of the races in the city have
already been decided, in secret, by local elites. Senior
local Communist Party leaders have allegedly decided they
will directly control 15 percent of the seats for
themselves and their hand-picked candidates. The other 85
percent of the seats, Li said, were given by the Party to
neighborhood "street leaders," who together with other

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local elites and wealthy business representatives, have
conspired to determine which official candidates will
appear on the ballot on December 12. District-level Party
leaders allegedly reserved the right to approve the final
candidates list put forward by local leaders.


14. (C) Drawing conclusions from the Shanghai example above
and other examples of election rigging in China, Li
described the situation as one where "elite shareholders,"
including Party cadres, local leaders, and wealthy
businessmen, collude to select in secret the vast majority
of candidates and fix the outcome far in advance. In
general, that is precisely how China itself is run, Li
declared. Li conceded that this represents a slight
broadening of interest groups compared to the past, when
the Party decided everything by itself. Nevertheless, most
of China's "pie" is divided only among this select group
and real independent candidates threaten to further divide
the "pie" of benefits and disrupt the deals carefully
negotiated among elite interest groups behind the scenes.
Most worrisome for China's future stability, Li said, is
that many of these deals are made entirely within local
elites, far beyond the control of the center.

Comment
--------------


15. (C) Chinese leaders clearly spare little expense and
effort on creating the fiction that China's political
system is democratic and that its leaders have some, at
least indirect, popular support. These efforts are tied to
maintaining system legitimacy, an issue that remains at the
core of Party concerns. Some political reform activists
continue to hold out hope that, in the long term, the
people's congresses can play a role in expanding democracy
in China, even while current elections are largely
manipulated and the congresses themselves toothless. These
reformers describe the propagation of democratic
consciousness through the voting process, increased
pressure to respect citizens' rights and other evidence of
nascent democratic institution building as significant, if
slow. They maintain that over time, it will be possible to
make real institutional changes at the lowest levels of the
structure that will then move up gradually. But they also
acknowledge that the system might not wait that long.
Randt