Sierra Leoneans are gearing up for the general elections come this Saturday November 17th.
The electioneering process has never been smooth due to regionalism and tribalism. But it is our own system of governance and we will have to adhere with the rules and work with whoever wins.
For China, it is different; a leader will have to be at the helm for 10 years before stepping down to his successor peacefully with no fighting or unrest.
The once in a decade change of government is almost over, as today Thursday November 15, 2012 will see the fifth generation of leaders taking over to start a new era in the most populous country in the world.
President Hu has stepped down as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China CPC and has handed over the position to Xi Jinping, who will be pronounced President today Thursday, at the Great Hall of the people in Beijing.
The week-long process has seen many changes in the government, ranging from the police to the military, from the civil service to the Provincial government.
The new leadership team, who will be paraded in front of the world’s cameras at the ceremony, is the so-called Fifth Generation: a group of middle-aged men who are tasked with ruling 1.3 billion people. Their job will be to ensure Communist continuity, five generations after the revolution which brought Chairman Mao to power.
However, their challenge will be to balance a strong but slowing economy with growing resentment over corruption, an urban-rural wealth gap and continued calls for political reforms.
In keeping with the widely anticipated succession plans, Hu was not re-elected a member of the party’s Central Committee on Wednesday of a pivotal party congress, showing that he’s no longer in the leadership. It is still unclear whether Hu would relinquish his most powerful remaining position as head of the commission that oversees the military, or hold onto it for a transitional period as previous retiring leaders have done. Delegates cheered when the announced results of secret balloting showed that Xi had been unanimously chosen for the committee, a step towards being named to the topmost panel, the Politburo Standing Committee, and becoming party leader. Li Keqiang, designated as the next premier, also was elected to the panel, the state Xinhua News Agency said.
The next lineup of China’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee, will be announced on Thursday. Though congress and Central Committee delegates have some influence over leadership decisions, most of the lineup is decided among a core group of the most powerful party members and elders. Xi and Li, part of a generation schooled at a time of more openness to the West than their predecessors, are shoo-ins for the nine-member Standing Committee. But other positions on the panel, which may be reduced to seven members, were believed up for grabs and the subject of intense jockeying ahead of the congress.
China’s leadership transitions are always occasions for fractious backroom bargaining, but this one has been further complicated by scandals that have fed public cynicism that their leaders are more concerned with power and wealth than government. Hu, who will remain president until March, took over as party boss in 2002 in the first power transfer that did not involve the death of a leader or unseating of a successor. He will remain in the largely ceremonial post of president until March. Whether or not, he remains head of the military commission, should become known Thursday, when the next leadership slate is announced. However, many analysts have said in recent days, they believe Hu has resolved to step down from all posts, in part to set a precedent that retiring leaders remove themselves from politics entirely, unlike Jiang, who held onto the post for two years after his retirement as party head.
In a nod to Hu’s 10 years in power, the congress upgraded his pet theory, the Scientific Outlook on Development, to rank alongside other key schools of thought in the party constitution such as Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thoughts. Hu’s program called for more balanced growth in an attempt to distribute benefits more fairly across society.
There have been lots of opinions and analysis about Xi Jinping at the helm, some have said he might restructure the CPC and bring about changes that will allow China to be more open, others are saying that he will continue the path of his predecessor.
But judging China over the years, one thing is for certain, Xi Jinping will definitely be a strong leader that will continue working for the good of the country and yet protecting the CPC from crashing. This is a man who is always smiling and when he talks, he does it with the utmost seriousness, as he never minces his word.
The narrow time gap between the US presidential election and the Communist Party of China (CPC) national congress that is electing new leaders has naturally triggered attention worldwide.
Political research professionals and amateurs have compared the two countries’ electoral systems and political systems. News houses and the public also show keen interests. As the world’s two largest economies with totally different political systems, or as the largest developed country and the largest developing one, they must have something special respectively. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain logically China’s rapid economic growth over the past three decades, the remarkable increase in people’s livelihood, and other historic changes of the country.
The “China miracle” is not only a result of the reform and opening up of economy, but also of the progress in the reform of the political structure, and the improvement in democracy and legal system. In the view of the Chinese people, China shall not copy the development patterns of foreign countries, and there is more than one pattern demonstrating democratic politics. Every country shall choose the social system and path of democratic politics according to its own conditions. There are lessons for China. A few countries copied Western political systems, and some moved further than the United States to adopt general elections, but they soon fall victim to ethnic confrontation, social unrest, and economic standstill or even recession. Their copycat versions often lead to unexpected or even counterproductive effects. During the exploration of the people’s democratic system, the CPC adopted the mode of “electoral democracy plus consultative democracy.” Consultative democracy is exactly the missing part in Western democracy.
Admittedly, the democratic political system is still developing and needs to be further improved. The top leadership of the CPC is explicit in this regard, just as the Party congress report says, “We must advance unwaveringly along this path to ensure that China’s socialist democracy has ever greater vitality.” One impressive phenomenon for observers of Chinese politics is that the CPC leadership always puts satisfying the immediate interests of the broadest majority of people as its priority and always sticks to pushing forward the reform of the political structure. In the level-by-level election of Party delegates and deputies to the people’s congresses, direct election is practiced at levels higher than before. Multi-candidate elections have become more competitive with increasingly bigger elimination margins.
It is widely expected in China that Xi Jinping will be very successful and will continue to drive the economy and improve the lives of the rural poor. He is faced with enormous challenges as many Chinese are waiting to see how he is going to deal with the Japanese over the Diaoyu Islands. Also the relationship with America is getting tense and many believe that Xi Jinping will be able to stand up because he is a strong and committed leader that will not yield to any outside interference.
While the world is expecting him to reform, it seems he is unlikely to steer the country in the democratic direction soon.
This is despite his soon-to-be predecessor Hu Jintao having uttered the word “democracy” dozens of times in his penultimate speech at the party congress in 2007. But Xi contrary to my hopes will not change the country and the party’s current political traction, especially in the face of a sluggish economy and the agitated poor. Chinese leaders are guided by “patience” and “caution”. Xi will therefore rely on the party’s painstakingly circumspect analysis of the world.
Xi, the son of a revolutionary, is still an enigma, and the world media relies on his tightly controlled and carefully scripted official resumé. Unlike his predecessors, Hu and Jiang Zenim, he won’t find it difficult to take charge of the military, the crucial source of power in China. Xi’s CV on the government website states he was secretary at the general office of the state council and general office of the Central Military Commission between 1979 and 1982, his power base was in the military. The party’s central committee plenum, probably the most influential organ, affirmed him in October 2010 as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Quoting some newspapers and journals of their opinion on Xi Jinping, The Guardian claimed that Xi has a reputation as a conciliator, while The New York Times described him as an ideologue who rarely deviates from the party script. He neither accepted interviews nor took questions from the media, when he visited South Africa in 2010. The Washington Post in 2010 said he was more likely to be “cautious and bureaucratic” and preferred the collective.
But that’s the character of Chinese leaders, who can appear prickly and prefer to ratchet up jingoism. Xi was quoted in 2009 in Mexico as having said that “foreigners with full bellies have nothing better to do than try to point fingers at our country”.
The Christian Science Monitor says Xi is an “efficient administrator and skilled consensus builder”. South Africa witnessed this efficiency when he was there. According to a senior South African official, Xi kept every promise he made. In some cases, he was frustrated by our bureaucracy. He has studied engineering, a career mostly followed by his predecessors and other Chinese leaders, according to the Foreign Policy journal.
Xi Jinping is an ethnic Han Chinese, born in June 1953, native of Fuping, Shaanxi Province. Joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in January 1974 and began working in January 1969. He graduated from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of Tsinghua University, majoring in Marxist theory and ideological education. With an on-the-job postgraduate education, Doctor of Laws (LLD).
He has served as member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, vice president of PRC and president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.
Xi Jinping is married to popular singer Peng Liyuan who many believe to be more popular than her husband and they have a daughter, who is currently studying in the States.
By Austin Thomas
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