Election Day

On my third official day as lone resident of this construction area I woke up to eerie silence. Normally I’m greeted by the clang of hammers, the buzz of saws and the whir of drills. The silence was rather refreshing!

I should have been up at 6AM and get ready to greet my first group of freshmen. Yes, once again I have the dubious honor of hosting the 8AM session on Monday mornings. However, the entire campus and the construction site have been shut down for elections.

Wait: elections, in this communist country?

Many people mistake communism for a form of government when in fact, it is an economic system. China is officially known as the People’s Republic of China. Therefore its form of government is republican and its economy is communist. Or, as the leaders of this country are famous for saying, capitalist with Chinese characteristics. It has been so since 1980, when Deng Xiao Ping opened China to the West by inviting trade partnerships and commercial ventures.

Yes, the Communist Party still reigns supreme. Yes, you must be careful what you say and do and you do not have free reign to everything on the Internet. There are no illusions of freedom here; the Government does monitor and control a lot of things. But this is a republic and all across China, in townships big and small, elections are held.

They are even elections like you are used to, with several candidates on the ballot. One huge difference is that no massive ad campaigns are launched. Another major difference is that a candidate does not have to be rich, just have good standing with the Party and a lot of guanxi. As a voter, unless you personally know the candidates, you do not know who is running and what their platform is. Ostensibly, they all represent the Party. That would be the communist party.

And in fact, each candidate must be a Party member in good standing in order to be placed on the ballot.

So, if you do not know who is running, how do you know who to vote for? The answer to that is simple. With a one-party system and that party vetting the candidates, it logically follows that each candidate must be trustworthy or worthwhile. And, one candidate is as good as the other. In theory the law of averages will dictate the outcome of the election. In fact, it is a popularity contest.

As I understand it (and I may well be wrong), the names of the candidates are virtually unknown until you are presented with a ballot. Of the candidates on the ballot, you simply select a name. If you happen to know one of the candidates, that is who you vote for.

Nowhere on campus or around town did I see any political propaganda, nor did anyone tell me anything about this election until Sam sent me a text message on Sunday night, telling me all classes were canceled for Monday morning due to elections. It was only on Monday, after the fact, when he dropped by for tea and conversation that I got the real scoop on how elections are run.

In this election, two of the candidates are directly affiliated with our school. One of them is our school’s president, and the other is the landowner the school sits on. Everyone affiliated with the school – every administrator, teacher, student, maintenance technician and construction worker were instructed to vote for the former so that, if our man was elected, our school will receive more government funds. If they felt it was necessary to vote differently, then they should vote for the latter candidate. That way, at least the school will derive some benefit. As far as our school was concerned, the third candidate did not matter at all.

Are you shocked? Why should you be? Its not like Americans have never bought votes before. Let’s take a trip back in time, shall we?

Remember, from your history classes in school, about the red ballots versus the blue ballots? As the good folk from the community headed into the voting hall, they were handed either a red paddle or a blue paddle. They had the chance to make a choice but, more often than not, they simply accepted the paddle they were handed and, when the electorate shouted ‘Who votes for Blue?!’ all those bearing blue paddles raised them and were duly counted. That was followed by the shout ‘Who votes for Red?!’, and all those bearing red paddles raised them and were duly counted.

That was back in the days when the country was mostly illiterate. People could not read the names on the ballots and that is why colors were used. That system went away the more people became educated. Next came the buying of votes, somewhere around the early 1900’s. The population comprising of immigrants who, afraid for their lives, did as they were told.

Sometimes, entire factories of workers were told who to vote for. Sometimes they were paid a dollar to vote for a certain candidate. To those who lived in tenements and others, who lived in impossible to imagine poverty and squalor, that dollar meant the difference between the family starving that week or being able to eat. To others it meant being able to pay the rent for some mean room with no facilities and to still others, it paid for the doctor to examine the baby with her insistent cough.

If you worked in a certain factory you were instructed to vote for a certain candidate. After you cast your ballot it was examined and, if it was found that you voted for the wrong candidate, you lost your job. Furthermore you were blacklisted and could not find work anywhere else. Upton Sinclair does a beautiful job illustrating all of this in his landmark novel titled The Jungle.

Back to China and their elections. On a national level, such as determining who will succeed President Hu Jintao or any other high office occupant, their successors are already being groomed for the position with no election necessary. Once accepted into the Party, a person is deemed OK by their book and they are fully into the fold.

A candidate’s educational record, military service history, personal finances and life, including his marriage is off the record. Indeed, a country leader’s spouse makes very few appearances and has no political clout whatsoever, as opposed to, say, America’s First Lady, who is expected to have an agenda and be highly visible at her husband’s side.

One interesting story to that fact is the next rumored Prime Minister and his betrothed. She is a mega-star in Asia, singing her heart out and dancing her feet off. She will have to either give up her career as an entertainer when she marries or break off the engagement. Right now speculation runs high on which path she will choose.

As for our town election, I do not know who won. It is not that the results have not been published, it is only because I do not know the names of the candidates. Therefore I could not tell you if our school president won, or the landowner or whoever the third candidate was. I can tell you that Sam finds the election process in China distasteful. I find it sociologically and politically significant.