China’s ruling communist party is keen to discard its Soviet-style functioning and has introduced more ‘democratic’ reforms as part of the political restructuring to meet the challenges in governing the world’s most populous nation.‘‘The CPC would push forward China’s political restructuring through reform and improvement of democracy within the party,’’ said Li Junru, vice-president of the party school of the Communist Party of China.Strengthening the CPC’s ruling capacity means promoting democracy in the whole nation through promoting democracy within the party and pushing forward the reform of the nation’s political institution through institutional innovation inside the party, Li said.In recent years, attempts have been made to expand democracy within the CPC throughout the country. There have been endeavours to build a permanent in-house democracy mechanism, the official Xinhua news agency reported.The CPC, which has monopolised political power since the people’s republic was founded in 1949, has repeatedly ruled out aping western-style democracy in the country.The key change is the introduction of a new cadre-appraisal system characterised with more democratic features involving public opinion poll, political achievements analysis, face-to-face talk and comprehensive assessment, before the officials are elected or appointed.While large-scale re-election of local leadership of the CPC is being organised at provincial, municipal, county and township levels nationwide, some new methods have been employed to improve party democracy, the report said. It quoted sources with the CPC organisation department as saying that the 2006-2007 re-elections, a major political event before the convening of the 17th National Congress of the CPC, underscore guarantee of ordinary party members’ right to know, participate, select and supervise.Grassroots people outside the party have also been granted a say in the campaign through public opinion polls.As a test, the CPC provincial committee of the booming Jiangsu in East China has ordered all the local party committees at township level to adopt an open candidate selection system in the ongoing re-elections for new party leaders.Various means, including questionnaire-based survey, door-step investigation, online research and symposium, are being employed in East China’s Zhejiang and Southwest China’s Sichuan provinces to invite ordinary people to assess cadres performance, the report said.Founded in 1921, the CPC now has 70.8 million members and 3.52 million grassroots organisations. Its whole regime came into being in the past revolution era and for decades it followed the Soviet model.
