Research On Actuality And Countermeasure About Bribery Election In Village Committee

As the basement of the state power,the village committee plays an irreplaceable role in China's rural areas.The quality of governance has a direct bearing on whether Party polices and national laws and regulations are implemented.Bribery election,compared to the "cancer" came with election,is rapidly spread.It has exerted negative influences on China's democratic construction at the grass-roots level,which is now a serious problem in rural development.Thus,a further research on this phenomenon is having the profound significance.The research follows the logical order as raising and analysing problems in an effort to solve them.Meanwhile,it employs the public selection theory and the service-oriented government theory,using literature research,interviews,questionnaire,field investigation and some other methods,focusing on the history of grass-roots governance and village autonomy,the current situation of village committee election,characteristics of bribery election phenomenon and its harm to village committees.It points out the following characteristics of "bribery election":generalization,diversification,high interests,concealment and systematization.The harm of bribery election mainly manifested in:destructing the intention of democracy and autonomy,tarnishing the image in the masses of the party,restricting the development of rural economy,affecting the social stability of rural areas and corrupting the social atmosphere.Based on the theories above,the paper takes Shandong Province as an example,analyzes the causes of the bribery phenomenon in the village committee election and summarizes six reasons.Firstly,from the angle of social culture,the power concept is absent while the officialdom standard thought goes right to the bone.Secondly,from the perspective of legal system,"bribery election"is not rigidly defined in law and the punishment is light.Thirdly,there are many loopholes in electoral process,which gives rise to bribery election.Fourthly,in the light of accountability mechanism,it is difficult to report or take the evidence of bribery election.Fifthly,from the point of economy,under the non-transparent village management,bribery costs can be easily recovered.The last but not the least,in the respect of the voters,they are commonly lack of the sense of democracy selection.Besides,the external environment is not healthy enough for democracy selection.In the end,some suggestions are put forward in this thesis to solve the bribery problem:First,strengthen the value education to build up the healthy power concept.Second,bribery in village committee election should be put into the criminal law,in order to improve the democratic election legal system of villagers committees.Third,improve and standardize the election procedures.Fourth,strict regulations and accountability mechanism of the village committee election must be established.Fifth,make village affairs public to create a healthy and transparent grass-roots political environment.Finally,intensify law education to raise the villagers' democratic awareness.Through the study of this paper we can draw the conclusion:It is necessary to promote the reform of grass-roots democracy as well as solve the problem of village committee bribery.We need the cooperation of national legislation,judiciary and administrative organs.We need people's social awareness and democratic consciousness to be awakened.We also need the continuous optimization and improvement of village committee election system,with the active participation of people from rural areas and the rest of Chinese people.