By Lin Mi (林密)
Translated by Song Chunling
Page 25
Issue No. 551, Jan 5, 2012
Original Article: [Chinese]

Liu Hong’s online description identifies her simply as a newspaper columnist. She has researched and written a book about China’s economy in the 1980s and was an independent candidate for the lowest level of the people’ congress in Beijing at last year’s elections.

She decided to stand for election in May and used her microblog, or weibo, to attract volunteers to deliver messages to the residents in her district who would be picking a candidate.

She also went by groups of people doing their morning and evening exercises, introducing herself and explaining that she was running for election. Despite many obstacles, she got 40 residents to support her candidacy and was approved as a preliminary candidate.

However, she was rejected for one of the two official candidacies, and Liu decided to run as an independent candidate instead, meaning that her name wouldn’t appear on the ballot and anyone wishing to vote for her would have to write it in a special space on the form.

According to Chinese electoral law, the election committee should organize a meeting for the representatives of the voters to meet the candidates. However in Liu’s district, it wasn’t until Liu and a few other voters insisted that a meeting was organized.  

When one lady at the meeting asked one of the official candidates, a magazine associate editor, how she would find out about the public’s needs, the candidate answered that she lived in the community but that, since it was her first time as a candidate, she would need some help from the public.

When Liu Hong asked the other official candidate, who was 58-years-old,  whether she was in the right physical condition to stand for election, the other candidate, a community party secretary, said that she had a temporary fever, but she took the nomination as an honor and would continue serving the residents even if she wasn’t elected. Liu responded that it is not an honor to be a deputy, but rather the responsibility to serve for the public.

Then Liu addressed the official candidate, “as the party secretary of the community, you should follow the instructions of the leaders; while as the deputy, you represent for the residents,” and asked “when the government is harming the people, which side will you choose?”  After a while the candidate answered “The interest of the government and the people are the same.”

“If there is a buzzphrase in 2011, I think it should be ‘to vote for an alternative candidate’ (另选他人),” Liu wrote on her Weibo account after the meeting.  On Nov 16, Liu won only 101 votes out of 3718. Although she felt lonely, disappointed and angry at times, Liu says she now feels less fearful and will participate more in the community in the future, believing that progress is made through every individual’s effort.