Beijing citizens elected 4,403 deputies from 18 districts and
counties in the district- and county-level People's
Congress?that ended on Monday.
Official election statistics show that the election saw a high
voter turnout predicted at above 90 percent.
The grass roots will be strongly represented in the incoming
congress with the new deputies coming from every cross-section of
society.
Officials also highlighted other changes in the congress.
For example, 32.3 percent of the new district deputies are
women, up 3.2 percentage points from the share of women serving
during the last term.
Seventy-nine percent of all the deputies have at least a college
degree, with some of them holding post-graduate degrees, up 12.1
percent from the last term.
Eighteen deputies come from other cities. This is the result of
a new election rule that allows people from other cities to take
part in elections in Beijing.
One official heralded the diversity of the incoming group of
deputies. "The new group of deputies is representative in terms of
gender, politics and education. They will better represent the
interests of all grass-roots people," said a city congress official
surnamed Guo.
The newly elected district-level congress will hold its first
meeting before the end of December and elect new leaders of the
district governments, courts and people's procuratorate.
Meanwhile, the city's township congress also concluded on
Monday. In that election, voters elected 9,971 deputies from 181
towns and 13 suburban districts and counties for the new township
congress.
(China Daily November 16, 2006)