quote:BEIJING (Reuters) - Villagers in southeastern China are up in arms after missing out on lucrative bribes during a recent village elections when candidates foreswore the practice at a temple, according to a Communist Party monthly magazine.
Officials up for election in Dingmei village in Fujian province had to swear to the party they would not bribe voters, but they went one further and took the same oath at a village temple, magazine Xiao Kang said in its March issue.
But this did not go down well with villagers, said the magazine, run by the party's ideological journal Qiu Shi, which means "Seeking Truth."
"You can earn lots of money if you're elected village boss, so what's so bad about dishing some of it out?" complained one old man, whose surname was given as Chen.
"But this election, they went to the temple and all we got was a bowl of rice and bottle of beer after all was said and done," he said. "It's peanuts."
The magazine said villagers were used to getting up to 1,000 yuan ($130) from candidates.
Hmmm... I do sympathize with these folks. I have a feeling that's a significant chunk of money for them. I wonder if there's a mechanism for them to reduce the wages for public officals and the taxes that pay those wages. It would seem reasonable now that the officials no longer have "bribing voters" as cost of campaigning.
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Even if there was a mechanism, I doubt it would be of any use. There's a very high probability that the monetary rewards of being an elected village boss are not due to wages or taxes, but in fact stem from bribery. What we have here is sort of a trickle-down economics of bribery. The village boss is likely getting bribes from developers and business men, and then uses those bribes to pay for votes.
Of course those bribes originally come from the people themselves, who are taken advantage of by the business men/developers. So in some sense, the elected officials are buying people's votes with their own money.
Its depressingly similar to most of what goes on in the US Senate. I fear that the Chinese are learning entirely the wrong types of lessons from us Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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