Party reps get more say under new rule in Guangdong

By Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-05 07:35

GUANGZHOU: Representatives of the Communist Party in Guangdong will have more rights from now on, under a new regulation on the province's tenure system.

According to the regulation, Party representatives will be authorized to propose resolutions, make enquiries into the Party committee they belong to and even challenge Party leaders concerning their obligation implementation, deployment of officials and suspected bureaucratic behavior, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Concerning the resolutions, targeted Party departments are required to respond to the representatives in written form within three months.

Related departments, once challenged, must respond to the representatives within one month and the departments must reply to the enquiries of the representatives in time, or at most 15 working days on the occasion that further investigation is necessary.

"The regulation empowers us to keep a close eye on the operation of a Party committee and do more for the committee during my tenure," Luo Kangda, a Party representative with the Huangpu town Party committee in the Pearl River Delta city of Zhongshan, said.

"I think a growing number of Party representatives would like to play a more active role in the Party work of our town," he said.

In the past, Party representatives just sat and listened to reports and raise their hands from time to time to vote for or veto a resolution during a congress, he said.

"It was a very passive role."

Ren Jiantao, a professor of public administration with Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University, said the regulation is a great breakthrough in the reform of the Party system.

"As deputies to people's congresses supervise the government's work, Party representatives will play the role of additional eyes on the operation of a Party committee," he said.

"That will help prevent the operation and decisions of a Party committee from derailing and turn a Party committee into a more democratic and open body."

The province has carried out the pilot work of a tenure system for a Party representative in the city of Huizhou, county of Yangdong, and district of Bao'an in Shenzhen in the past decade.

A Party representative there has served a term of five years, who has been supervising and advising the local Party committee when the annual Party congress is closed.