City 4, Countryside 1

A draft amendment to abolish a controversial 4:1 representative urbanrural imbalance is being deliberated by China's top legislature at its five-day bimonthly session starting on October 27. Each rural deputy represents four times the number of people represented by each urban deputy at national, provincial and prefectural level congress, a phenomenon that has existed for almost 13 years.

"The amendment to the current electoral law marks a step forward," Cai Dingjian, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing told the Global Times.

City 4, Countryside 1

"However, it isn't directly related to an increase in the number of farmers' deputies at congress and so will have limited impact on enlarging grass-root voices from rural areas at congress."

The so-called "one-quarter article" is stipulated in Articles 12, 14 and 16 of current Electoral Law, criticized for endowing only one fourth of voting rights to a rural resident compared with an urban resident. This inequality existed in the first draft of the law.

In the first draft of the 1953 electoral law, the number of people represented by each rural deputy was eight times the number of people represented by each urban deputy, according to Jiao Hongchang, a constitutional law expert at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing.

"The proportion at that time was reasonable firstly because over 80 percent of people in China were rural residents, which might make the people's congress into a farmers' congress if a deputy in the congress would have represented an equal number of rural and urban residents," he said.

Secondly, if equal votes were granted, the phenomenon would apparently violate the idea that China should be led by the working class.

"Although this regulation in some aspects was not absolutely equal," Jiao said, "only through this inequality can the real situation of our country be reflected, can deputies from all social classes find a position in the national congress and thus can de facto equality be achieved."

Amendments The new electoral law was unveiled in 1979, with four further amendments in 1982, 1986, 1995 and 2004. In the 1995 amendment, the old principle for electing congress deputies was replaced by the current "one quarter principle".

Jiao said the proportion fully considered the 1995 population balance of China, when rural populations were around four times the population of urban areas. So, according to the regulated proportion, each rural deputy represented 880,000 rural voters and each urban deputy represented 220,000 urban voters on average.

Tremendous changes have taken place in the demographic composition of China since then. The National Bureau of Statistics said in a report in 2008 that the rural percentage was 45.7 percent and urban 54.3 percent. This offers a mature opportunity to change the electoral system regulations of China.

Professor Han Dayuan from Renmin University of China in Beijing, who joined the drafting of the amendment, told the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend: "We made two proposals about the draft: One is to realize, all in one step, the 1:1 rural-urban ratio in elections. The second is to implement based on the difference of areas.

"Some areas that have the conditions are to realize the 1:1 ratio, and those without the conditions will have the 2:1 ratio as the first step."

The 'conditions' include the development of the local economy, the urban-rural difference, the population composition, the level of democracy as well as other elements, he told the Southern Weekend.

According to Jiao, no matter whether the new principle is to apply nationwide or in some parts of China, it will help farmers gain more weight in the decision-making process of the nation that is marching from being agricultural to industrial.

"The rural residents, in some sense, can be counted as a disadvantaged group during this fast-paced social urbanization and development. So politically it's important to ensure

"I personally don't believe rural residents will have a louder voice by making an amendment only," he said. "Because the number of deputies attending the congress is regulated and allocated according to the Organic Law. So it's unlikely that a large number of rural residents will have their seats in the congress all of a sudden."

Research completed by Cai shows that the composition of deputies in most sessions of congress has barely changed in recent years. On most occasions, about 1200 deputies are cadres, about 600 are entrepreneurs and about 200 are intellectuals and soldiers, leaving only 50 to 60 seats for farmers' deputies. The number of peasant deputies rose to 70-80 in the 11th session of the congress.

Moreover, fewer of the deputies in congress are real farmers.

"There is a phenomenon in the congress: farmer deputies are not really farmers themselves," Cai told the Global Times. "So if you really want to hear more voices from rural areas, it's necessary to provide more seats in congress for the farmers."

These phenomena mentioned above boil down to one issue: the status of the deputy.

Standards

A stricter standard should also be set for electing a qualified deputy, such as whether government officials can be a deputy or not in the congress.

A good standard should also integrate an electoral system which is competitive and transparent, according to Cai.

"An electoral system in competition will yield more responsible deputies in the congress," he said. "In addition, a transparent electoral system will provide no room for electoral corruption. So both of them are necessary and more important."

China Youth Daily said that there are 300 million people, nearly a quarter of the Chinese population, who reside away from their permanent residence in China. How to guarantee their rights is another pressing question now, Cai told the Global Times.

"In the process of urbanization, it's unavoidable that an increasing number of people might move or work elsewhere without holding a permanent residence in the place they are living.

"Therefore, we need to concentrate on the next step of safeguarding their rights. It combines lots of issues together, so won't be a simple issue."

In fact, the amendment of the "one quarter article" may contribute only to a decrease in urban and rural differences, according to Jiao. A large number of questions are waiting to be solved in the process of pushing forward democratic construction.

"It's impossible that all of these questions will be solved with the amendment by this article alone," he said. "Fortunately, it's an improvement that we made in developing political democracy.

"So I believe it can be counted on as a worthy exploration for the Chinese democratization reform."