China's top legislator stresses orderly, law-based elections of county, township lawmakers

BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislator Zhao Leji has called for efforts to ensure elections of county and township people's congresses are conducted in a law-based and orderly manner and with clean and upright conduct.

Zhao, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, made the remarks during an investigation and research tour of northeast China's Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces from Monday to Thursday.

Elections of the people's congresses at the county and township levels are a major event in China's political life, Zhao said.

China's people's congress system has a multi-tiered structure, with the NPC at the top and congresses at the provincial, municipal, county and township levels. Deputies are elected at each level every five years to represent the people's interests.

China is currently carrying out a new round of elections of county- and township-level lawmakers. More than one billion voters will directly elect over 2.6 million deputies to the people's congresses at this level.

Stressing the importance of upholding the Party's leadership, Zhao urged solid efforts to ensure that all stages of the elections, including voter registration and voting, are conducted in a law-based and orderly manner and with clean and upright conduct.

During the tour, Zhao also called for efforts to make good use of mechanisms and platforms such as public solicitation of opinions and primary-level legislative outreach offices to build broad consensus on legislation.

Lawmakers should be supported in performing their duties in accordance with the law and maintaining regular contact with the public, he said.

Zhao also called on local people's congresses to properly advance local legislation, ensure that local legislation does not conflict with higher-level laws, has local characteristics and is practical and workable.