BEIJING, June 26 (Xinhua) -- While large-scale re-elections of local leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are proceeding at provincial, municipal, county and township levels nationwide, some new methods have been employed to improve Party democracy in the process.

    Most noteworthy is the introduction of a new cadre appraisal system characterized 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.

    Sources with the Party organization departments said 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, to participate, to select and to supervise. Meanwhile, grassroots people outside the Party have also been granted a say in the campaign through public opinion polls.

    As a new 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 Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces to invite ordinary people to assess cadres performance, sources said.

    Under a cadre achievement hearing system in Donghai County in Jiangsu, eight people were scored low and have been accordingly removed from leading posts.

    Founded in 1921, the CPC now has 70.8 million members and 3.52 million grassroots organizations. Its whole regime came into being in the past revolution era and it had for decades followed the Soviet model.

    A highly centralized leadership with the worship of former Chairman Mao Zedong had served as a key element bringing China into the chaotic Cultural Revolution between 1966-76, with tens of thousands of people including many loyal Party members being persecuted.

    As China has entered a new epoch for creating economic miracle, the Party is faced with various problems such as corruption, low efficiency and bureaucracy, and thus a self-improvement is being urged.

    The Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee in2004pointed out that developing democracy within the Party was an important part of political restructuring and building of political civilization in China.

    "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 CPC Central Committee.

    In recent years, experiment has been made for expanding democracy within the CPC in numerous areas throughout the country. Endeavors have been and are being exerted to build a permanent in-house democracy mechanism. The system to secure party members' right has been further improved.

    At the end of 2003, Luotian County in central China's Hubei Province kicked off a landmark reform--replacing the standing committee, which was usually composed of 11 members at the county level, with a broader 15-member committee elected by the county's Party congress.

    Besides the county's Party congress, the 15-member committee is authorized to decide, through secret ballots, major polices of the county and to appoint or dismiss chief officials.

    Traditionally, the former 11-member group was dominated by a small team of one secretary and five vice secretaries, who were actually the decision makers for county affairs.

    Following a principle of "the minority is subordinate to the majority", the "team of six" would always win a vote even if all the other five members were against a certain proposal the "team of six" put forward. The number of total members of a Party standing committee is an odd one, in order to avoid even results in voting.

    Experts say the aforesaid landmark experiment helped break the traditional framework in which power is likely to be monopolized by a few leaders or even one leader.

    More experimental efforts followed.

In October 2004, the standing committee of the provincial Party committee of Jiangsu smashed the traditional direct nomination practice for the Party secretary of Wuxi City. Instead, the list of candidates for the post was filed with the municipal committee elected by the city's Party congress for voting. The voting results were made public to local media.

In August 2005, south China's Guangdong Province replaced verbal voting with a secret one-person-one-ballot approach to select candidates for the top posts of four prefecture-level cities under its jurisdiction.

    Currently, experiment is being done in Shanghai and Jiangsu to solicit proposals and opinions from among common people outside the Party for the selection of officials at grassroots Party units.

    The 16th CPC national congress in 2002 decided that in-house democracy was the life of the Party, calling on more cities and counties to be chosen as pilot areas for turning the local Party congresses as permanent organs. The Party congresses at municipal and county levels in in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hubei and Sichuan have since convened annually on a trial basis.

    Traditionally, Party congresses at all levels convene every five years and they were not permanent organs. It is believed this leads to over-centralization and arbitary ruling by individuals.

    Observers say it is of significance for the CPC, with a history of 85 years, to maintain its vanguard nature through limiting the power of top Party leaders at all levels, warding off corruption, realizing scientific and democratic decision making and through building a broad, effective supervision mechanism.

    Improvement of democracy within the Party is also demonstrating itself in the fact that new method is being adopted in daily management.

    Eight grass root Party organs, headed by Jiangsi Copper Industry Group in east China's Jiangxi Province, have phased in ISO 9000 quality management system in daily management and taken lead in the country to invite a "third-party", a social intermediate institution, to do appraisal and certification for the Party management.

    According to the Learning Times newspaper publicized by the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the move is conducive to standardizing efforts to enhance the vanguard nature of the Party.

    While it is expanding in-house democracy, the CPC is carrying out a massive education among all of its members for maintaining their vanguard nature. The campaign is seen as an important measure to intensify the Party's ruling capacity.

    Li Junru, vice president of the Party School, said intensifying the Party's ruling capacity means promoting democracy in the whole nation through development of democracy within the Party and pushing forward the reform of the nation's political institution through institutional innovation inside the Party.

    Ye Duchu, an expert in Party management, said the enhancement of the CPC's ruling capacity will bring about a series of positive changes at political, economic and social aspects in China. Enditem