China top authority calls for stricter monitoring in local elections

BEIJING -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) urged local officials to strengthen monitoring ahead of the local elections.

In a meeting concerning the monitoring of cadres, which was convened in recent days, the Organizational Department of the CPC Central Committee urged officials in all areas to study instructions on elections issued by Xi Jinping, the general secretary of CPC Central Committee.

Supervision of the elections should be a top priority this year, it said.

More than 900 million Chinese voters will directly elect over 2.5 million county- or township-level lawmakers in elections this year.

The department said lessons should be learned from election corruption cases in the provinces of Hunan and Sichuan.

It also called for strict supervision of the authorities and the people.

A zero-tolerance attitude toward corruption should be held, the department said. It underscored that the forming of cliques, vote-buying, selling office, asking for positions, fraud for posts, leaking secrets and others would not be tolerated.