Officials accused him of taking his duties too far, warning him that the law on local people's congresses made no provision for full-time deputies.
Local party leaders blamed Yao for blackening the image of Qianjiang by informing journalists about his uncovering of corruption, illegal village elections, and the use of sometimes violent emergency response teams to coerce farmers into paying annual fees. The leaders claimed Yao damaged the city's economic prospects by successfully opposing a plan to merge Qianjiang with two other cities.
State-run and other semi-official media publicized the beating of Yao in December 2002 by officials who claimed he snatched a confidential election document. The media continued to support him after he lost his seat.
"An unavoidable fact in Qianjiang is that the contradiction between the truth-teller Yao Lifa and some of the local government officials is getting sharper each day," China News Weekly said in a report on the disputed election.
All proposed NPC motions must be submitted to an organizing committee, which keeps most of them out of the public eye. NPC officials would most likely ask the Hubei provincial congress to handle a proposal for an investigation into the Qianjiang election.
Yao said he expected this course of action.
Whatever the outcome of his petition to Hu Jintao and the NPC, he is determined to continue serving local people in Qianjiang. At the next election for people's congress deputies, there will be even more independent candidates, he said.
RSS