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99 liaison offices aim to connect public, delegates

99 liaison offices aim to connect public, delegates

Write: Cable [2011-05-20]
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99 liaison offices aim to connect public, delegates

  • Source: Global Times
  • [08:58 April 22 2011]
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By Chen Xiaoduan

The Shanghai People's Congress said that it plans to open National People's Congress (NPC) liaison offices to represent its delegates in each of the city's 99 sub-districts by the end of June, to make officials more accessible to the public and allow voters to get more involved in the political process.

Pei Zhen, an NPC delegate for Pudong New Area, said that the move will increase opportunities for people's voices to be heard.

"Under this system, the contact information of all 860 NPC delegates will be made available to the public," he told the Global Times Thursday.

"It will give the public more chances for delegates to interact with residents through organized seminars," he added. "Our goal is to give people a chance to inform us of their concerns rather than simply turning to the complaints office," he added.

So far, 70 percent of the sub-districts for 16 administrative districts in the city already have such offices in place, making the city one of the most open places in the country in terms of accessibility to delegates.

Bo Haibo, another NPC delegate and lawyer from Shanghai Bluesky Law Firm, said that creating more liaison offices will give ordinary people a better platform to share ideas with people responsible for decision-making.

"It will make things easier for voters wanting to communicate with delegates," he told the Global Times Thursday. "In the past, it's been hard to find a way for ordinary people to contact delegates."

According to Jiang Hong, dean of the School of Public Economics from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, only time will tell if such a setup will have any real impact on the way politics are handled.

He suggested that delegates expand upon this idea by establishing tools to further improve upon the lines of communication between them and constituents, pointing to a case initiated by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference last year.

"Delegates wrote proposals on their blogs, which were then opened as discussions for the public to join," he told the Global Times Thursday. "More of these mechanisms would help the general public connect with delegates."