Democratic Parties Still Political Minority in China (from ATSNN), page 1

posted on Sep, 13 2004 @ 04:23 PM

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Through scandals, propaganda, publicity stunts, and exploitation of the Chinese electoral system China's communist leadership has effectively stifled the political growth of China's pro-democratic parties - at least for this election. The pro-democratic parties won more of the popular vote, and now have more seats than ever before, but did not gain as much power as had been feared by the current Chinese leadership.

news.bbc.co.uk
Back in July, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for the second year running, it was widely expected that come September, the new mood of popular defiance would translate itself into a dramatic shift in the balance of power in the Legislative Council.

But in the end, the rulers of the world's last major communist country have proved themselves experts at the election game.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

It is hard for me to imagine a world with a democratic China, and I guess this means we will have to keep imagining for at least one more one more election cycle. While it is dismaying that the pro-democratic movement hasn't made headway to the extent it was expected to, it is good to see that at last things are beginning to change in the last major communist nation in the world.

Related News Links:
straitstimes.asia1.com.sg
www.swissinfo.org

Edit: Fixed title.

[edit on 13-9-2004 by spngsambigpants]

[edit on 13-9-2004 by spngsambigpants]

cstyle226

posted on Sep, 13 2004 @ 04:26 PM

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The funny thing about Communism is...it doesn't really care what the people think...so I don't think that the Communist leaders look at the votes and say, "Well hey, we lost...let's give up...time for us to leave."

[edit on 13-9-2004 by cstyle226]

FredT

posted on Sep, 13 2004 @ 06:37 PM

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There have been reports of ballot tampering and intimidations before the elections as well.