Residents accused officials of voting fraud and blocked the vote count in a local election at a southern Chinese village where police and citizens clashed earlier over corruption allegations, Hong Kong media reported yesterday.
Tempers flared in Taishi village on Monday when villagers accused officials of unfairly disallowing proxy votes and rigging the run-off election for a delegate to a local people's congress, the South China Morning Post and Apple Daily reported. The congress is similar to a state legislature or county board of commissioners.
About 20 villagers shouted at an equal number of officials overseeing the vote, the Post said. The crowd also blocked the officials from opening the ballot box and counting the votes, Apple Daily reported.
Taishi, a village in Guangdong Province, drew international media attention last year when villagers launched a movement to recall elected village chief Chen Jingshen (陳景深), whom they accused of embezzlement. Police broke up a hunger strike last September. They also raided Chen's office, where villagers were standing guard to prevent the removal of accounting ledgers they said contained evidence of his graft.
Some villagers were beaten up and others were detained.
Before Monday's election, the candidate backed by officials, Liang Jianhong (
The Post and Apple Daily quoted unidentified villagers as saying officials promised people who had to work on Monday that they could cast proxy votes.
The Post reported that one woman shouted at officials: "You told us proxy votes were allowed [on Monday] and now you won't let us vote. Everybody has gone to work. How do you expect them to come back to vote? Why don't you call off this election?"
Election officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment yesterday. It wasn't clear who won the vote or whether the results would be certified.
Guo Feixiong (郭飛雄), an activist who has been advising the villagers, said the ballot box was sealed and taken away by election workers, the Post reported. Guo, also known as "Yang Maodong," said Monday's problems were unexpected because the first round of voting -- which Feng won -- went off without signs of manipulation. The run-off was held because Feng didn't win the required majority in the earlier vote.
In recent years, there have been an increasing number of bold, sometimes violent, protests by villagers trying to attract attention to grievances including pollution, corruption and illegal land seizures.
Many have led to clashes between protesters and police or armed gangs hired by local officials.
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