On Direct Election Of Township Mayors In China

Democracy is not only humanity's political ideal, but also the realistic institutional and procedure arrangements, and also basic principle and mechanism of government. In modern democratic society, the state of all power belongs to the people,but not all the people are entitled to exercise the rights personally. Thus, direct or indirect democracy is needed by electing people's representatives to form the legislature or serve in public office, representing the people to exercise power. Election is a democracy procedure with general acknowledged rules, so one person or several is elected to serve the public. The democratic election has been recognized as the only legal means to obtain power.Report of Sixteenth National Congress puts forward the idea of extending democracy at the grassroots level is the groundwork for developing socialist democracy. Report delivered at Seventeenth National Congress points out that people's democracy is the life of socialism. The development of socialist democratic politics is our Party's unswerving goal. Since 1998, chief of the township government direct election experiment has been conducted in some selected areas, which later expands to various areas.As a result, autonomy in urban community is greatly inspired. Since the realization of democracy is a long process, it is best not to be overly ambitious in the beginning or copy blindly in terms of chief of the township government direct election.In addition, the democratic phenomenon should be analyzed based on our country's actual conditions.The paper mainly analyzes direct seclection of chief of the township government from the following several aspects: The first part deals with the necessity and the feasibility of direct election under our country's democratic legal system by earnest analysis.1. Chief of the township government direct election refers to the direct selection of chief of the township government by qualified voters at township level. The direct election possesses all direct election's advantages: direct election can bring about higher efficiency and more scientific decisions; direct election can be carried out by demarcation of constituencies to ensure reliability. The direct election has many merits which the indirect election does not have: (1) direct election can fully reflect voter's wish. (2) the direct election can avoid bureaucratism. (3) the direct election intensifies the function of political education. (4) the direct election has provided convenient and stable mechanism for puplic's emotion demand.2. Necessity of direct election of chief of the township government: 1) solving some of the flaws of original chief of the township government qualification mode. 2) solving some of the flaws of original villages and towns system. 3) necessity of democracy development at the grassroots level.3. Feasibility of direct election of chief of the township government1) the physical conditions has basically met. Most parts of our country have undergone rapid economic development and the people's living standard has greatly improved. The broadcast, television, publication, and network has expanded rapidly, and the election facilities like ballot box, filing cabinet, conference site and office are all available. 2) democracy intelligence and legal condition is in place. Along with our country educational reform, nine-year compulsory education is generally available and the cultural level of the farmers has been greatly raised. The farmer's ability of solving the problem and the way looking at things have been greatly improved. The farmers' cultural and political quality has been generally enhanced. 3) the democracy consciousness promoted. With the development of communication in the countryside, the ways of obtaining information are varied. public right to information and the right to speak is met by technical improvement. Therefore,the farmer's democratic awareness has improved markedly.The second part analyzes the mode and significance of direct election of chief of the township government.,which can be summerized as the following pattern: 1) "direct election" pattern of Sichuan Buyun Town. 2) "elected and selected by common people" pattern of Sichuan Nanbu County. 3) "direct election by people's representative" pattern of Sichuan Mianyang. 4) "poll" pattern of Zhuo Li town, Linyi County, Shanxi Province. 5) "three round two tickets" pattern of Dapeng Town of Guangdong Province. 6. county-wide "direct election" pattern of Honghezhou, Yunnan Province.4. The significance of direct election of chief of the township government. 1) make new breakthroughs of the democracy at the grassroots level. This reform makes a meaningful exploration on the direction of direct election on county and township levels. 2. promoting legality of the election. It represents the public opinion and reduces the political risk, being of great significance to the transition from traditional system to democratic system. 3) providing a platform for selecting officials. Direct election of chief of the township government leads to selecting the talented person in a broader scope, achieving the talent-selection transition from historical static state to dynamic state.The third part, laying emphasis in researching problems and discoving the cause existing in the process of direct selection, is the main part of the paper. Elaborate analysis is conducted on the cause existing in the process of direct selection. The aim of analysis is to find the root of problems arising from the process of direct election. 1) direct election lacks of legal foundation. 2) direct election and the present election system conflict. 3) election procedures are not standard. 4) illegal activities in direct election. 5) election costs increase. 6) voters tired of election 7) voting rights for migrant workers.Problems that exist in the process of direct election: 1) no sound laws and regulations which match the election system. Because our country's direct election experiment is still in its infancy now, so many laws and regulations blanks exsit. 2) original election system's barrier. Chief of the township government's direct election by the voters poses direct impact on the function of the National People's Congress on village and town's level. 3) flaw exsiting in direct election itself. The direct election need to be perfect. 4) impact of voter's individual quality. First, the voters lack of democratic awareness. Second, influence of individual political merits and sense of obligation. 5) household registration system hinders the exercise of voter's rights. Many migrant workers' voting rights are hard to exercise normally.The fourth part is to put forward countermeasure and suggestions on direct election.Based on the above analysis, ways to tackle the problems are proposed: (1) speed up legislation of direct election of chief of the township government.(2) promote coordination between direct election and National People's Congress. (3) strengthen coordination between direct election and the cadre selecting system. (4) improve the procedure of direct election of chief of the township government. (5) promote voter's democratic awarenessOur country's economic development has laid a solid foundation for the direct election of chief of the township government, but the work of formulating related rules and regulations lags behind the development of direct election. Thus, placing contradictory conflict between direct election and the Party's rules and regulations in front of us. To sum up,we should carry out direct election in selected countryside areas step by step, summrize the experience and implement the reform prudently.