国内英语新闻：China completes leadership reshuffle in local Party organizations

BEIJING -- Thirty-one provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland had reshuffled local Party committees through internal elections for Party officials within a year ending last June.

Moreover, 408 cities, 2,763 counties and 34,976 townships have elected new Party committee leadership from early 2006 to April this year, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee said here Thursday.

This has made good preparation for the upcoming 17th CPC National Congress.

The positions in the new Party committees at the provincial, regional and municipal levels were reduced by 21 compared with previous ones. The positions were cut by 149 at the city level, by 859  at the county level, and by 34,368 at the township level.

Meanwhile, the local Party leaders are younger and well educated, particularly at the provincial level. The age of leaders in CPC provincial committees average 52.9 years old, half a year younger than their predecessors, and 91.6 percent of them received college education, 14 percentage points higher than before.

The CPC Central Committee has taken a series of measures to make the election in local Party leadership fair and clean, the department said.

In 296 townships of 16 provincial-level regions across China, leaders of Party committees were directly voted by CPC members as pilot projects.

The ratio between the candidates and the elected officials reached 100:89 in the election at the provincial level and 100:88 to 100:85 at the county-level.

The candidates also received strict scrutiny from the Party discipline departments to ensure they are clean from corruption or scandals.

A hot line was set to receive tip-off about malpractice and corrupt candidates during the local Party leadership reshuffle.

Thus far, 260 officials have been punished for malpractice.