Remove money and clans from village elections

• Source: Global Times
• [23:00 March 04 2010]
• Comments

There was not much festivity in the village except some firecrackers. The mainstays used to be villagers visiting each other's home, and a basketball tournament that saw villagers divided into competitive teams.

No chance of that this year. Team spirit was only limited to clans and camps so village-wide organization was a precarious proposition.

My village of 900 residents has a strong basketball tradition, taking home the town-ship championship for many decades. Now it seems this has fallen victim to rural politics.

My mother doesn't like the village election. Neither do some other villagers whom I talked to – you lose money and neighbors. Election means taking sides and the farmers do it with two criteria – the clanship and economic benefits. Not much can be said of political beliefs or aspirations.

For the clans, two things matter: earning glory by taking the top job in the village (and so having the feeling of "owning" the village), and laying hands on lucrative projects that might take place on the village terrain. It's an open secret that the village head and other officials would bring in their relatives to get contracts for building roads or cleaning up creeks.

The election for village head comes once every three years. I don't think I'm very much looking forward to the Spring Festival holidays in the coming years in my home village.

Maybe it's time to rethink how the grass-roots election system works in villages driven by clan loyalties.

The author is a Beijing-based freelance writer. viewpoint@ globaltimes.com.cn