Two Sessions: China’s Liaoning recovering from vote-buying scandal

World Today

National People’s Congress deputies from Liaoning province say they are eager to put a vote-buying scandal behind them. Almost half of the province’s delegation was removed in the fall.

CGTN’s Guan Yang reports.

Yin Jiyu is a physics teacher in China’s northeastern province of Liaoning. She never engaged in politics – until a vote-buying scandal shook the province to its foundations.

In September, the National People’s Congress kicked out 45 of Liaoning’s 110 delegates for buying their way into the legislature. Hundreds of members of the provincial People’s Congress were also removed.

Yin is optimistic about Liaoning’s recovery.

“I think Liaoning will be just fine,” she said. “As a new NPC deputy, I am confident that my qualifications can stand the tests of the masses.”

The province held elections in January to replace the disgraced NPC members. One of the new members is Wu Yanliang, a party secretary from Dongxing village.

Because the vote-buying scandal cast doubt on the credibility of Liaoning’s election system, Wu said, people were keen to know how the new members were chosen.

“After my nomination was submitted to the local people’s congress, the local legislature carried out a thorough review of my profile,” Wu said.

“They conducted closed-door surveys with the villagers about my qualifications,” he said.

When the votes were counted, he had won 581 out of 583 votes.