BEIJING -- On a cold January morning in the Caoyuan (Grass Garden) neighborhood of east Beijing, residents huddled together to watch the hustings. Yang Guiying stepped up to speak. "If I am elected, our committee will think for the residents here, help them when they are in need and provide the best service we can." Five other candidates followed, some visibly nervous, before ballot papers were distributed and votes cast.
An election official chalked up each vote on a blackboard, until loud applause greeted Yang's modest entry into the record books. By securing 43 of the total 48 votes, she became head of the first democratically elected neighborhood committee in Beijing's Dongcheng district.
Following successful trials in 200 neighborhoods like Caoyuan since the beginning of the year, Beijing announced that from June 1 this experiment in local democracy will spread throughout the capital's 5,000 neighborhood committees. Twenty other cities across China have begun similar experiments to strengthen grassroots democracy in urban areas and complement village committee elections under way in the countryside.