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1st LD-Writethru-China Focus: 477 punished for SW China electoral fraud

Xinhua, September 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

Nearly 500 people in southwest China's Sichuan Province have been imprisoned or given administrative penalties for electoral fraud in 2011.

A total of 477 people, most of them Communist Party of China (CPC) members and officials, were involved in bribery that determined an election for standing members of the Nanchong municipal committee of the CPC prior to the first plenary session of the fifth CPC Nanchong municipal committee, in Sichuan on Oct. 19, 2011, according to a statement issued by the CPC Sichuan provincial committee on Tuesday.

An investigation launched in the latter half of last year found 16 officials offered bribes, another 227 facilitated the bid, 230 officials took bribes, while four neglected their duties. The money involved totaled 16.72 million yuan (2.63 million U.S. dollars), the statement said.

Yang Jianhua, former Party chief of Yilong County, was elected as a standing member of the CPC Nanchong municipal committee after using 800,000 yuan of public funds to bribe potential municipal committee members. He paid some of the bribes himself and had subordinates pay others, according to the provincial committee.

Yang was sentenced to 20 years in prison for offering and taking bribes and power abuse, while Liu Hongjian, then Nanchong's Party chief, was given three years for dereliction of duty.

Thirty-three of those involved have been expelled from the CPC, public office and their cases transferred to judicial organs.

Seventy-seven have been stripped of posts within and outside of the CPC, while the rest have received warnings, the statement said.

According to the CPC Sichuan provincial committee, the number of people and the amount of bribes involved in the case constituted a grave violation of Party codes of conduct and laws.

The case works as a telling reminder that some officials have lost sight of Party principles and have such little respect for the law that they have been unable to resist the temptation of corruption, it said in the statement.

Party organizations' failure to educate, manage and supervise its members, meanwhile, have also indulged misconduct and corruption, the committee added.

The investigation and punishment proves the CPC's zero tolerance for graft and determination to run the Party strictly, according to the statement, describing the fights against corruption as a matter of "life and death" for the CPC.

It urged Sichuan Party organizations to learn from the Nanchong case and promote discipline, integrity and awareness of the law among their members "in order to create a benign political environment that champions honesty and hard work." Endi