Recently I’ve started paying attention again to the matter of deputies to the People’s Congress, and the immediate trigger was reading a news interview with a “person in charge of the Legal Work Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress” on “independent candidates” having no legal basis. Although I had previously heard that so-and-so was going to run for deputy to the People’s Congress, I hadn’t paid much attention. But when I saw this authoritative explanation from the person in charge of “legal” work, I was startled, and so I looked into the matter.
The explanation given by this person in charge is astonishing. I am not versed in law, but even according to the common sense I learned in political classes as a child, one can see that there is a major problem with it. All I remember is that the right to vote and the right to stand for election are always listed together; as long as one has not been deprived of the status of voter, one has both the right to vote and the right to stand for election at the same time. There was never any talk of someone having the right to vote but not the right to be elected; we learned this in middle school political class. So what does it mean to have the right to be elected? To have the right to be elected, but not to be able to run—does such a situation exist? If you were actually saying that I can be elected, but cannot participate in the electoral process, wouldn’t that be absurd? Of course, at election time, voters will see a number of formal candidates presented to them as options, and the emergence of these formal candidates naturally requires certain procedures, such as nomination by the relevant unit or joint recommendation by more than ten voters. But this list, no matter what, is merely for the convenience of voters in better understanding the candidates and for the convenience of voting; in principle, there should not be a tiny group of screeners above the entire electorate during the electoral process. If people running for office must first pass the screening of a tiny handful of people before they are qualified to be voted on by all voters, wouldn’t that mean that the voters’ ballots are entirely secondary? Even if, in practice, that really is the case, at least nominally and legally it is not supposed to be that way, is it? What the person in charge of the Legal Work Committee explained—was that really a legal principle, or was it merely an attack on current politics? Nominally, every voter possesses the right to be elected; this right to be elected is not stripped away just because one has not been designated a “formal candidate.” A person who has the right to be elected can only lose in the election; he should not lose the right to run before even entering the electoral process. Otherwise it would not be called the “right to be elected.”
Article 39 of the Election Law (old version Article 37) stipulates: “Voters may cast a vote in favor of a deputy candidate, may cast a vote against, may vote for any other voter, and may also abstain.” — In theory, even if one has failed to become one of those asshole “deputy candidates,” so long as one becomes “any voter,” one can be elected. In fact (thanks to Brother Zhou Liang for the reminder), my country’s first self-nominated deputy to the People’s Congress, Yao Lifa, was elected in the 1990s by way of “voting for another deputy.” If the so-called “candidate” is defined as a “formal deputy candidate” determined in a preliminary election, then you can say that “independent candidates” must go through such a procedure. But which person in charge said, “According to the Election Law, any citizen running for deputy to the county- or township-level People’s Congress must first … second … third … fourth …”? That is obviously wrong. Among these steps, at most only the first item, voter registration, is a necessary condition.
That “fourth” point is the most absurd of all—“The election committee shall uniformly organize and carry out introduction activities for the deputy candidates.”—Yet if one searches through the entire text of the Election Law, one cannot find any requirement of “uniform organization” at all; and Article 33 clearly states: “The election committee or the presidium of the People’s Congress shall introduce information about the deputy candidates to voters or deputies. Political parties, people’s organizations, voters, and deputies who recommend deputy candidates may introduce the information of the recommended deputy candidates at meetings of voter groups or deputy groups. According to voters’ requests, the election committee shall organize meetings between deputy candidates and voters, at which the deputy candidates shall introduce their own circumstances and answer voters’ questions. However, the introduction of deputy candidates must cease on election day.” — Here, what is required of the election committee is an “ought to”; it is required to carry out publicity, but it is not granted a monopoly over publicity, and the voters who recommend deputies, of course, also “may” do publicity. Not to mention that in a country supposedly enjoying freedom of speech, if a citizen wants to introduce himself in public, so long as he does not disturb public order, what would be the problem? Must one run for office by way of an introduction activity under “uniform organization” — could such words really have been spoken by the person in charge of legal work?
Someone jokingly said, “Philosophers have lately become very concerned with mundane affairs.” In fact, I have always been like this. My philosophy is not metaphysical or idealist, but Marxist and phenomenological (the Haima school); the basic interest and point of departure of my philosophy is concrete, immediate existence. I do not sink into constructing an abstract world-picture; rather, I want to start from our present situation, trace its causes and consequences, and think through its possibilities. Politically, too, I have always been a reformist. I do not want a revolution, and I sincerely do not look forward to a change of regime. But I respect those radicals who devote themselves to revolutionary causes. What I do not agree with are people like this: on the one hand, they have no confidence in reform and feel that the present situation is hopeless; yet on the other hand, they do not devote themselves to any revolutionary cause, and instead remain there with a “watching the fire from across the river” mentality, pointing and commenting and making sarcastic remarks, and then imagine themselves to be very free and rebellious. I also point and comment, and I do not devote myself to any kind of practical movement either, but I do genuinely recognize the possibility of reform. It is not difficult to point out faults; the key lies in how, under the existing conditions, one can make appropriate efforts in small details so that the real environment may shift in the direction of the ideal. For example, as a voter, doing one’s best to “vote for someone else” is a kind of action. When countless small actions come together, they can form a new trend.
By the way, let me also say a few words about my thoughts on the system of the People’s Congress. I once mentioned that the ideal way to produce deputies to the People’s Congress should be by “drawing lots.” Let me add a bit more now.
First of all, a lottery-based system can guarantee a pluralistic democracy. Western democratic elections are actually a contest of money, while Chinese elections are a contest of “connections”; the representatives elected in fact do not represent all the people, but are more inclined to represent those who hold economic resources or social networks. So what about elections in the ideal state? What kind of people do we hope ideal elections will produce? Westerners value correct thought, while Chinese value noble morality. An ideal electoral system should bring such “outstanding” people to the fore. But even this ideal state is still not ideal. Who, after all, is to judge whether thought is correct? How is one to measure the degree of morality? Everyone has their own yardstick, and the people’s deputies ought to be able to represent all kinds of diverse values, rather than representing only the few mainstream, standardized values that ultimately win out.
Why select a small number of people to serve as representatives of all the people? This is not only because it is impossible to hold a full popular referendum on every decision, but also because “democracy” in its essence is far more than merely a matter of voting. The crux of democracy lies in public discussion, and voting is only the final link. For any public policy, it needs to be placed in the public sphere and subjected to open discussion, debate, verification, and decision-making; this is the soul of democratic politics. And public discussion cannot be boundless or endless; democratic decisions must unfold in a controlled scale and in a limited manner. That is why a small number of “representatives” must be selected to participate in decision-making. And since the real significance of these representatives lies in “discussion” rather than voting, then there is a major difference between preserving as much diversity among the representatives as possible and already enlarging the “mainstream” at the stage of selecting representatives. If the representatives participating in discussion are produced through elections, then those positions that are more moderate and more mainstream will enjoy greater advantage, while marginal and heterodox positions will be more easily excluded. Moreover, the more mainstream a value is, the more likely it is to converge, whereas the more marginal a force is, the more disagreements it often contains, making it harder to unite and harder to recommend a small number of figures with broad influence. In short, producing representatives through elections will “dilute” marginal, alternative, and heterodox positions. But through drawing lots, one can ensure that a wide variety of opinions basically preserve their proportion in the overall citizenry as they enter the decision-making group. Next, if the members of this representative decision-making group merely vote, then these small groups will still be diluted away; but if their main task is discussion, then the presence of even a very small number of highly unconventional elements may exert a crucial influence. They are more likely to discover prejudices and blind spots in mainstream views, more likely to initiate controversies and thereby stimulate the improvement of proposals, and more likely to become the center of debate. Even if their share in the final vote remains negligible, they will certainly have a positive impact on the entire decision-making process.
Of course, some people will ask: if everything depends on drawing lots, what if hooligans, scoundrels, lunatics, and idiots are selected? Then so be it. The key is, what exactly are the powers of the people’s deputies? If they had the power to rule the people and directly manage public affairs, then of course letting a lucky lunatic obtain such power would be dangerous. But clearly the social system is not made up of only this one group called “people’s deputies.” There is also an entire corps of civil servants and a party apparatus. The actual management and handling of affairs should be done by civil servants; the People’s Congress may have the power to carry out certain removals from office, but it will never directly involve itself in public administration. New policies or various proposals can be submitted to the deputies for discussion and veto by scholars, think tanks, or ordinary citizens through certain procedures, but the deputies themselves need not bear the obligation of putting forward bills; as for social cohesion and value orientation, as well as supervision and review, these can still be handled by party and government organs (of course my ideal is to replace the secretary with the historian). In principle, the People’s Congress possesses the highest decision-making power; to be precise, it is the “Congress” as the body of discussion that possesses the highest decision-making power, rather than each individual deputy possessing supreme authority. Therefore, the election of lunatics, idiots, and extremists would not lead to destructive consequences — so long as they in fact coexist peacefully in society in proportion to their actual presence.
Looking at China’s present situation, the People’s Congress is like an emperor sitting high above. In principle, all the highest power belongs to it. But its actual power in public affairs, like that of many emperors in ancient times, has been suspended or even hollowed out. In ancient China, the emperor in principle possessed supreme power, but what about in fact? In fact, emperors were often kept in the dark within the deep palace by various forces—either eunuchs, or imperial relatives, or senior officials, or the powerful nobility… and the emperor was merely the “nominal” figure that these actual wielders of power had to invoke in order to carry out rule. Imperial power was often not centralization, but totalitarianism. The current democratic centralism, in fact, is not “centralized” either, but “totalitarian” — an onion-like structure whose layers of power have an empty center. To truly let the People’s Congress hold supreme power, the very thing is not to place it at the center, but to set it off to the side, away from all the active (such as proposal and implementation) and passive (such as supervision and sanctions) public affairs, and to grant it only the Platonic philosopher-king-like authority — decision.
Let me stop here for today.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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