Study On Problems And Governance Of Bribery In China’s Village Committee Elections

The villagers’ autonomy is the main form of governance in China’s rural areas, and thevillage committee election is an important part of the villagers’ autonomy. However,the related legal system is not sound and the villagers’ legal and democracyconsciousness is weak, in the village committee election appears bribery. This articleuses case studies, refers to the academic researches and learns from extraterritorialadvanced experience, hoping to solve the problems of bribery in the village committeeelection. This article analyses the concept of bribery in election, clearly put forward theessence of bribery in election and constitutive requirements and standards, and describesthe characteristics of bribery in the election. It has a variety of forms and plans, and willbe accompanied by other illegal behavior. Then analyze which impact will be caused bythe bribery in the villagers’ committee election. It undermines the system of villagers’autonomy, affects the social stability in rural areas, constraints the development of therural collective economy, and damages the image of the party and the government. Thisarticle analyzes the causes for the election of villagers’ committee in terms ofinstitutional and non-institutional: First, China’s villagers’ autonomy legal system is notsound.; Second, in order to meet the strong political need is political reason; Third, inorder to obtain the corresponding economic interests is economic reason; Four,patriarchal attitudes strongly in rural areas, as well as the villagers’ herd mentality issocial reason; Five, villagers have strong official standard thought and farmer’s ownlimitations are cultural reasons. On the basis of analysis of the causes of bribery and thesuccessful experience of other countries, several of the recommendations have beenpresented on the basis of reason and reflection on the current control measures: First, itmust have a clear legal definition of bribery, it should include at least three aspects, suchas concepts, constitutive elements and recognition criteria; Second, it should improvethe system of opening village affairs, it should perfect the content of the village affairsknown to public, regulate the procedures of village affairs known to public, and buildthe supervisors and the appropriate accountability; Third, it should perfect the lawregulation of election procedures. The legal system should perfect secret writing links,strengthen the management of delegate voting links, have clear qualifications ofcandidates, determine how to be the official candidates, require the official candidatesshould submit campaign and set the trial link; Four, it should establish an effective mechanism of supervision and sanctions. In terms of supervision mechanisms, it shouldestablish and perfect the legal system to strengthen the supervision of village committeeelections and the members of villagers’ committees. In terms of sanction mechanisms, itshould establish and perfect the legal system to strengthen the restriction andpunishment on the acts of bribery in the elections of villagers’ committee and the illegalacts of the members of villagers’ committee during their tenures; Five, it should changefunctions of villagers’ committee. It should establish a system to compress economicfunctions of villagers’ committee, weaken the powers of the director of the villagecommittee, and strengthen the functions of service and villager autonomy of villagers’committee.