The Shenzhen government released yesterday (July 6) a shortlist of 27 candidates who will compete for eight senior government posts as part of an experiment aimed at introducing elections for high-ranking government officials.
Most of the eight posts have three candidates in contention. At present, most city officials are appointed or elected with just one candidate in the offing.
Among the 27 candidates, four have doctoral degrees and 17 hold master's degrees.
The youngest candidate, Zhang Zhihua, was born in 1977 and is deputy Party secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League. Zhang is competing to be head of the Shenzhen Disabled Persons' Federation.
The candidates will go through a thorough evaluation by the organization department and then go for a final vote by the municipal committee of the CPC, said Lai Yukun, vice head of the organization department.
All the candidates will be made public on the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily today to invite public supervision.
The organization department received a total of 219 nominations from government departments and 67 self-nominations, of whom 204 were qualified for election, said Lai.
A session of the municipal Party committee conducted an election from the 204 qualified nominees Monday. The standing committee of the municipal Party committee yesterday chose the shortlist based on Monday's selection.
The eight vacancies, all at bureau chief level, include heads of the Luohu and Nanshan district governments, head of Pingshan New Zone, chiefs of the audit and statistics bureaus, and the city's Taiwan affairs office.
The elections for the eight posts will be completed by mid-July.
At the Fifth Shenzhen Municipal Congress of the CPC in May, top city officials indicated that Shenzhen would pick top officials through competitive elections.
(By Li Hao)
