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发帖数: 77 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: RealtorHarry (NJ Real Estate Agent), 信区: Military
标 题: 十八大政治局很可能差额选举
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Tue Nov 6 11:45:52 2012, 美东)
AP NEWS。 有点不敢相信。
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's outgoing leader and his likely successor are
pushing the ruling Communist Party to adopt a more democratic process this
month for choosing a new leadership, sources said, in an attempt to boost
its flagging legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
The extent of the reform would be unprecedented in communist China where
elections for the highest tiers of the party, held every five years, have
been mainly exercises in rubber-stamping candidates already agreed upon by
party power-brokers.
The Communist Party, which has held unbroken power since 1949, is struggling
to maintain its popular legitimacy in the face of rising inequality,
corruption and environmental degradation, even as the economy continues to
bound ahead.
President Hu Jintao and his heir, Xi Jinping, have proposed that the party's
18th Congress, which opens on Thursday, should hold elections for the elite
Politburo where for the first time there would be more candidates than
available seats, said three sources with ties to the party leadership.
The Politburo, currently 24 members, is the second-highest level of power in
China from which the highest decision-making body, the Politburo Standing
Committee, is chosen.
They are chosen by the roughly 200 full members of the Central Committee
which is in turn chosen by the more than 2,000 delegates at this week's
Congress.
Under their proposal, there would be up to 20 percent more candidates than
seats in the new Politburo in an election to be held next week, the sources
said. It was unclear if competitive voting would also be extended to the
Standing Committee.
"Hu wants expanding intra-party democracy to be one of his legacies," one
source said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing
secretive elite politics.
"It would also be good for Xi's image," the source added.
Xi is considered certain to replace Hu as party chief at the congress, with
Li Keqiang, currently a vice premier, tipped to become his deputy in the
once-in-a-decade transition to a new administration. Xi would then take over
as president, and Li as premier, at the annual full session of parliament
in March.
China experts said a more competitive election for the Politburo would mark
a historic reform that could lead to surprises in the formation of Xi's
administration, with wider implications for further political reform.
"This is a very, very important development," said Cheng Li, a senior fellow
at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"It would provide a new source of legitimacy. It would not just be dark-box
manipulation ... The party's legitimacy is so low that they must do
something to uplift the public's confidence."
However, Li and other experts remained skeptical that the proposal would be
adopted, given that it could still be vetoed by party elders or
conservatives.
'OPENING UP THE GAME'
Under the proposal, a Politburo with, say, 25 seats would be contested by a
maximum of 30 candidates, leaving five of the candidates put forward by
party power-brokers at risk of defeat.
Given the Standing Committee is chosen from the Politburo, such a reform
could also lead to surprises at the most elite level of the party, which is
normally decided by painstaking consensus in a series of back-room
negotiations.
China experts said that of the main candidates for both the Politburo and
Standing Committee this time, there are a few whose chances could be
improved in a competitive Politburo vote and some who would probably sweat
over the outcome.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong Baptist
University, said such a vote might help reputed reformers such as Wang Yang,
Guangdong party boss, and Li Yuanchao, head of the party's powerful
organization department.
"It gives back a chance to leaders like Wang Yang or even Li Yuanchao to get
elected, provided - and this is a big if - they are included on the
candidacy list," Cabestan said.
Wang is well known for launching limited democratic reforms in the village
of Wukan this year to quell an uprising, but his chances of reaching the
Standing Committee came under question recently when sources said he had
been left off a preferred list of candidates drawn up by Hu, Xi and former
leader Jiang Zemin.
However, front-runner Liu Yunshan, the party's propaganda chief, could have
the most to fear from a more democratic vote, said Chen Ziming, an
independent scholar of politics in Beijing.
"Many people do not like his work," Chen said. "They also have to take
public opinion into consideration," he added.
Sources said the Hu-Xi proposal would also significantly extend the
competitiveness of elections to the party's third tier, the Central
Committee, a body of roughly 200 members where a very limited form of
competitive voting already takes place.
At the last congress in 2007, there were 8 percent more candidates than
seats for the Central Committee, up from 5 percent in 2002, according to
Central Party School professor Gao Xinmin writing in the Study Times, a
party mouthpiece.
Under the proposal, that could rise to up to 40 percent this time, the
sources said.
The State Council Information Office, which doubles as the party spokesman's
office, declined immediate comment.
The Hu-Xi proposal has been put forward at a time when the party is split
between leftists who worry about major economic inequalities that have
opened up after three decades of free-market reforms and those who want to
accelerate those reforms.
The split revealed itself dramatically this year in the downfall of
Politburo member Bo Xilai, a favorite of the left, in a murder scandal in
which his wife was implicated and jailed. Bo has been expelled from the
party and is to stand trial on charges including corruption.
"If you extend the (number of candidates) then the level of uncertainty
opens the game up and allows people to compete and maybe coalitions to form
within the party," said Cabestan of Hong Kong Baptist University.
"It opens the game in both direction - for friends of Bo Xilai as well," he
added.
(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Mark Bendeich and
Jonathan Thatcher) |
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