CIAO DATE: 11/2009
March 2000
At the invitation of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), People’s Republic of China, The Carter Center sent a delegation to observe villager committee (VC) elections in Hebei Province from January 4 to 13, 2000. The delegation was led by Ambassador Gordon L. Streeb, Associate Executive Director of the Center, and made up of nine Center staff members, election experts and China scholars from various universities in the United States and Denmark. This was the fourth time since 1997 that the Center has observed village elections in China and the first time that an international organization has been invited to observe a primary VC election. The visit was a success. It further consolidated the relationship between the Center and the MCA and finalized the next stage of cooperative activities. It provided opportunities for the Center to assess and evaluate its work in China and to better define the scope and depth of its work there. It was also an occasion for the Center to investigate how the new November 1998 permanent Organic Law on Villager Committees (hereafter the Organic Law) has impacted the quality of village elections and the fledgling process of village-level democratization in China.
Resource link: Report of The Carter Center's Fourth Observation of Chinese Village Elections 4 Jan 2000 [PDF] - 316K