Provincial legislatures, consultative bodies convene

The first session of the new provincial legislature of eastern China's Jiangsu Province opened Sunday, the country's first region to start annual meetings of both its legislature and political advisory body.

A 27-page government work report, delivered by Li Xueyong, governor of Jiangsu, focused on improving people's living standards, outlining achievements during the past five years and development goals for the next half-a-decade.

The report was shorter than in recent years, apparently following the eight requirements for leaders to improve their work style and fight bureaucratism, which were adopted by the Communist Party of China's new leadership, which was elected in November.

The session of the 12th Jiangsu provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, opened Saturday. Sessions of the CPPCC committees in central Henan Province and southwestern Yunnan Province convened on the same day.

There were no fresh flowers in conference halls, nor colorful banners or traffic controls on the streets. The registration process of attendees was short. There were fewer dishes of food in hotels for them.

This illustrated that local authorities have become more simple, practical and efficient in their working style. In the next ten days, annual sessions of provincial legislatures and political advisory bodies will open in other provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

Prior to the annual sessions of the national legislature and political advisory body in March, the provincial political events occur more than two months after the national congress of the ruling party.

New governors, heads of provincial legislatures and political consultative bodies, provincial high courts and procuratorates, will all be elected during the events.

Acting mayors or governors of eight provinces or municipalities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang, are expected to be elected to the posts.

"Simple and clear. I had never had such fresh feelings over the past decade," said Yang Decai, a political advisor of Jiangsu, describing his impression of Saturday's opening session of the provincial political consultative body.

"With strict enforcement of orders, the country will be more hopeful," said Yang on the Internet. He is a professor in economics at Nanjing University.

The first session of the 14th Municipal People's Congress of Beijing will be held on Tuesday.

The work report of the standing committee of the municipal legislature was shortened by 25 percent than before, said Liu Weilin, an official of the standing committee of the capital's legislature. Each speech should be short to save time for discussions, he added.

In Beijing's new legislature, which has 771 deputies, the number of grassroots members increased by 7.13 percent while leading CPC members or officials has dropped by 4.71 percent, compared with the previous one.

"The provincial political events should take the initiative to be concise, practical and highly efficient, avoid empty words and bureaucratism," said Xu Yaotong, professor of politics with the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Xu said he appreciated reforms but stressed that deputies should have good qualifications and shoulder responsibilities instead of always saying emotional words.

Yesterday's events were monitored closely by Chinese citizens. A scene of some attendees sleeping or playing with their mobile phones in a recent session of the legislature of Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province sparked fierce criticism.

Supervision teams will be dispatched to inspect the regional political events in Beijing, Henan, Jiangsu, Yunnan and Shanxi, by the CPC central commission for discipline inspection and the organization department of the CPC Central Committee, according to reports.