Selection process puzzles advisors
- Source: Global Times
- [02:32 March 12 2010]
- Comments
By Lin Meilian
A professor said he was not aware that he had been made a member of the nation's top political advisory body until he learned the news from the media.
Ding Weiyue, 65, a professor at Peking University and a member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said he knew he was selected after watching a television report, the China Youth Daily reported Thursday.
"I did not know I was selected until my name was announced on TV, no one ever asked me if I was willing to take it," Ding was quoted as saying.
He said the China National Democratic Construction Association, one of the democratic parties that selected him, did not ask for his opinion.
"What if I say no? We have the right to say no, don't we?" he asked.
A similar case was reported about some grass-roots people's congress deputies.
Li Xiaoxi, a professor at the Air Force Command Institute and a former deputy of the People's Congress of Haidian district in Beijing, told a similar story to the Global Times.
"Basically all candidates are nominated by officials, and maybe they think it is not necessary to inform them," she told the Global Times Thursday.
Li was picked as a district-level deputy by her institute in 1999 when she was away from Beijing and stayed at her hometown in northeast China to take care of her ill mother.
"I don't know how they picked me. When I came back and was told the good news, I hesitated. I was not retired yet and my mother needed me to take care of her," she said.
"Then I thought, I should make good use of this rare opportunity to make my voice heard," she added.
In addition, some selected CPPCC members did not do enough to fulfill the responsi-bilities that come with the position.
Twenty-one out of 75 selected members were absent from the sixth session of Dong-guan's standing committee of the 11th CPPCC in Guangdong Province Tuesday with various excuses, the Qianjiang Evening News reported Thursday.
The absence was not isolated, according to media reports, in which some celebrity CPPCC members reportedly missed the political advisory body's annual session.
Some CPPCC members said adjustments are needed to improve the mechanism used to select CPPCC members.
"If a mechanism shows no respect to a person's right to say no, how could it ensure their enthusiasm to participate in politics," the China Youth Daily quoted Ding as saying.
However, Hu Xingdou, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, said, "Even though there are some shortfalls with the system, we cannot deny it does pick some representatives to speak for the people."
