election calendar

The Central Election Commission is moving toward having two big elections every four years instead of the current system in which elections are spread out over each election cycle.  The CEC is planning to hold one huge set of local elections in late 2014, which would include mayors and city councils for direct municipalities, executives and county assemblies for counties and county-level cities, township mayors and assemblies, and village heads.  In Chinese, that list is: 直轄市長，直轄市議員，縣市長，縣市議員，鄉鎮市長，鄉鎮市民代表，村里長。 The recently passed local governance act adjusted the terms of all these offices so that they will expire on Dec. 25, 2014.  (This gave most officeholders a few extra months in office.)

The CEC is also planning to combine presidential and legislative elections.  However, the terms for these offices have not yet been unified, so it is not clear whether those elections would be in Dec 2011/Jan 2012, when the next legislative election should take place or March 2012, when the next presidential election is scheduled.

Allow me to shed a tear for the demise of election calendar with yearly elections (sometimes more).  It probably isn’t a terrible change for the polity, but it’s a disaster for me.  My life will be emptier.

Tags: election calendar