Given the party's secretive nature, analysts said was still likely that fresh measures would be unveiled in the coming days to meet those lofty goals amid public pressure for substantial steps towards a more clean, democratic and transparent party.

The communiqu?lavished praise on the party's accomplishments since last year in overcoming the global financial downturn, dealing with the massive Sichuan earthquake, hosting the Beijing Olympics, and maintaining stability despite social and environmental woes and ethnic tensions.

It also admitted the party had great difficulty in coping with rising domestic challenges and the 'mission to manage the party strictly has never been so arduous and urgent'.

Problems within the party 'have severely undermined the party's creativity, unity and effectiveness in dealing with these problems, harmed the flesh and blood contact between the party and people, hampering efforts to consolidate the party's ruling status', it said.

The party pledged to perfect its internal election mechanism and give millions of party members more democratic rights. 'Internal democracy is the lifeline of the party ... We must adhere to [the principle of] promoting people's democracy by strengthening inner-party democracy,' the communique said.

As a token sign, grass-roots members were invited to the meeting, which was previously exclusively for top party officials.

National University of Singapore Professor Zheng Yongnian said the party had made the right move by strengthening itself internally rather than experimenting with societal democracy.

'Given the political reality of a one-party state, internal democracy is a better way for China to move towards a democratic society than a multiparty political system,' he said.

However, he doubted whether such reform could effectively curb corruption, which had become a source of public dissatisfaction and frequent unrest.

'We have seen too many cases of combating corruption with factional politics within the party, which is an anti-corruption drive for the sake of power struggle,' Zheng said.

Analysts said that even though quite a number of corrupt senior officials were caught in the past two years, such as the former chairman of the Guangdong People's Political Consultative Conference, Chen Shaoji , and former Shenzhen mayor Xu Zongheng , the party had done little to prevent corruption from getting worse.

Professor Zhu Lijia , from the National School of Administration, said although the party repeatedly admitted official corruption had undermined its legitimacy since the 15th party congress 12 years ago, it had yet to roll out effective measures to curb the abuse of power.

'Consensus has been reached ... that corruption can only be controlled by institutional reform, such as requiring officials to publicise details of their personal assets, and setting up much-needed checks and balances, but there has not been much progress in curbing corruption and power succession,' he said.

Zheng said that despite mounting public pressure, the party had lacked the motivation to make headway in rooting out corruption because of vested interests. 'Fighting corruption is a lot more difficult than taking a few steps on inner-party democracy. It looks unlikely that things will change any time soon as the current anti-graft campaigns target only individuals rather than the system and fail to enlist media and public supervision,' he said.

But he said 'inner-party democracy', which meant essentially competitive elections within the party, could be a critical move in restricting power and helping rein in widespread corruption.

For the first time in the party's 88-year history, the official document of the world's largest political entity said open and competitive elections should be introduced in selecting cadres, Zhu said.

Caught in the net

The big fish who have been brought down since the last plenary session

Wang Huayuan, 59 Former head of party's disciplinary inspection committee in Zhejiang and Guangdong. He was sacked and expelled from the party in August.

Yu Youjun, 56 Former vice-minister of culture and the ministry's party chief, Shanxi governor and Shenzhen mayor. He was sacked in September last year.

Huang Songyou, 51 Vice-president of Supreme People's Court. He was fired last October and expelled from the party.

Zheng Shaodong, 50 Assistant minister of public security. He was sacked in January.

Chen Shaoji, 64 Former chairman of Guangdong People's Political Consultative Conference and Guangdong police chief. He was sacked and expelled from the party in August.

Xu Zongheng, 53 Former Shenzhen mayor. He was sacked in June and stripped of his seat on the National People's Congress in August.