Research On The Direct Electoral Procedure Of People’s Congresses Representatives

The system of People’s Congresses is the basic political system of China, which ensures the rights of the people as the master of the country, guarantees the people exercise state power and manage the state affairs. The People’s Congresses system is based on the people’s congress, which is composed of the people’s congresses representatives, and the representatives constitute the main body of the People’s Congress through democratic elections. The democratic election could be divided into direct election and indirect election. Direct election, by which the voters can directly cast ballots for the persons who represent their political demands and interests, is the main form to realize citizen’s political participation with higher-developed democratization. In addition to that, the direct electoral procedure makes a decisive contribution to the integrity of election, and it is well known that the electoral substantive justice calls for procedural justice. In order to improve the degree of electoral democratization and promote the development of democracy, this dissertation will start from the related concepts of democracy and election, observe the status quo of China’s direct electoral procedure of people’s congresses representatives, analyze the exiting problems and put forward proposals and ideas to reform and perfect the direct electoral procedure.This dissertation is divided into the following six parts:Part I Introduction:This part mainly introduces the background and starting point of this dissertation. The direct election of people’s congresses representatives lacks democracy in the practice, and it can’t reflect the voters’will because the election is more about confirming superior intention than voting for the person whom the voters desire to see elected. In this sense, the direct election system shall be reformed and improved. Meanwhile, this part also reviews and summarizes the research achievements and related literatures in this field, and recommends the research methods of this dissertation.Part Ⅱ This part introduces the related concepts, including democracy and democratic politics, election and electoral system, the differences between direct election and indirect election, the meaning of electoral procedure and so on. Clarifying these related concepts will lay a solid foundation for further research.Part Ⅲ Observing the status quo of China’s direct electoral procedure of people’s congresses representatives. Firstly, reviewing the reformation and completion process from the perspective of all the previous amendments of the Electoral Law of the People’s Republic of China for the National People’s Congress and Local People’s Congresses. Further more, according to the operational mode of direct electoral procedure, this part also summarizes the specific provisions concerning direct election of the current Electoral Law, from setting up the election committee, allocating number of deputies, drawing lines of voting districts, voter registration, nomination of deputy candidates to propagandizing candidates, voting by ballot and the final election.Part IV On the grounds of contemplating the current status of election practice, and revealing the latent defects and vulnerabilities in the direct electoral procedures, this part focuses on exploring the loopholes of the system designing which lead to manipulation in election, and the consequent problems caused by ineffective implementation of prescribed electoral procedures. In this case the following problems will come out, for example, the electoral authorities cannot remain neutral, the delegates quota allocation becomes unfair, manipulating election by gerrymander, passive voter registration, the selection of official candidates lack of transparency, limited methods to approach candidates and the disadvantages of voting.Part V To fix the above problems, this part put forward specific suggestions and proposals to reform and perfect the direct electoral procedure of people’s congresses representatives, for instance, setting up neutral election authorities, mending allocation methods and abolishing the proportion limit of number of deputies, confirming voting districts based on place of abode, increasing the number of small districts, changing voter registration form from passive to active to figure out the registration of floating voters, improving the procedure of recommending deputy candidates and deciding official candidates, loosening restrictions on candidates’ campaign, replacing proxy voting and mobile polling boxes with postal vote and so on.Part VI Conclusion. Summarizing the basic argument of this dissertation, and indicating the innovation points and deficiencies. The reform suggestions and proposals relating to direct electoral procedure of people’s congresses representatives mentioned in this dissertation have never been proven by practice, so it still remains to see whether these proposals will settle the problem of insufficient democracy in practice, moreover some of the suggestions seem to be ambiguous which require more specific measures to implement, and all of these aspects will be further studied in future research.