In China, Political Outsiders Turn to Microblog Campaigns

Yao Bo, a well-known social commentator in China, is running for a legislative seat as a write-in candidate in a Beijing district.

Published: October 31, 2011

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Here, they keep their heads down and elucidate no platform. And if they campaign at all, their politicking is discreetly low-key.

“The last thing you want to do is gather people together,” Yao Bo, a well-known social commentator aiming for a legislative seat in a Beijing district, said in October.

That is because Mr. Yao is running as an independent in an election that is ostensibly open to all comers, but in fact is stacked in favor of the Communist Party’s handpicked candidates. To have any hope of cracking the system, some candidates argue, an outsider must either be so famous that he or she cannot be blocked from running without an outcry, or so anonymous that the authorities are caught off guard.

In past years, no strategy has worked. But in a turnabout, this year’s push by outsiders to infiltrate China’s local political process is creating ripples, partly because of the momentum and visibility they are building via Twitter-like services on the Chinese Internet. Not only are there more candidates — estimates range from more than 100 to thousands — but they are also no longer faceless challengers who can be shoved aside without a whimper.

Many if not most will fail to make it onto the ballot, much less get elected, because of myriad government impediments, Li Fan, director of the World and China Institute, a nongovernmental research center in Beijing, said in an interview. Nonetheless, he said, the surge in such candidacies is “a very strong indication that the government cannot continue to totally dominate public policy.”

Typically, elections to China’s local people’s congresses, the lowest parliamentary tier, excite little interest. More than two million lawmakers are chosen in the only government posts — other than village leaders and the odd government-approved experiment — that are determined by direct election. Ordinary Chinese typically sit out the referendums, held every three to five years, because they view the results as foreordained.

But this election cycle, which began in May and will continue through next year, is already proving different.

Consider the candidacy of Guo Huojia, 59, a vegetable and fruit seller with a primary school education. He has battled local authorities outside Guangzhou for four years over what he claims are illegal government seizures of farms for development.

This summer, Mr. Guo decided to take his frustrations to the people. He gathered the necessary signatures — a minimum of 10 — to be nominated by individual voters, instead of by the Communist Party or party-affiliated organizations. He slid onto the ballot, and on Sept. 28, he was elected with 4,827 votes, beating the next vote-getter, a government-backed candidate, by about 2,000 votes.

“It is my honor to be elected representative for advocating rights by law,” he said in a telephone interview.

Asked about his campaign, Mr. Guo said: “I didn’t really have one. I kept a low profile.” Once in office, however, he hopes to pressure the authorities to return confiscated rice farms to him and his fellow villagers.

History is not on his side: Yao Lifa, a teacher described as the first “non-affiliated” delegate elected to a local people’s congress in 1998, was defeated for re-election after what the Chinese media called a fruitless term. Since then, he has been subject to detention and constant government harassment.

But this year’s elections have attracted much better-known candidates. Running in the south-central province of Sichuan is Li Chengpeng, 43, a sports commentator, social critic and author whose microblog has more than three million followers. On the ballot in a Beijing district is Wu Danhong, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law. Both declined to be interviewed.

Youthful idealists have also joined the fray, including Liu Ruoxi, 18, a high school student in Shenzhen who gathered more than 2,000 signatures for his candidacy. A supporter of multiparty democracy, Mr. Liu said he would campaign for students’ rights via Twitter-like microblogs, or weibos.

The ability of candidates to whip up online sentiment for political change appears to be what most worries the authorities. One state security officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment publicly, said regulatory authorities were considering measures to curb microblogging sites partly because of the potential for political networking.

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