Election farce

My favourite TV comedy is the Blackadder series produced by the BBC, starring Rowan Atkinson as a clever, amoral cynic. One of the episodes is called Dish and Dishonesty - a hilarious satire on the sham democracy in 18th-century Britain.

The story starts with politician William Pitt the Younger trying to move a parliamentary motion against the stupid and wasteful Prince Edward. Blackadder, the prince's butler, hatches a fiendish plan to foil the attempt. Through some underhanded manipulations and fraud, Blackadder successfully rigs a local election to get his man-servant Baldrick into Parliament. The episode never fails to make me laugh, yet I never thought I would see it in real life. But, as Shenzhen held its urban district election last week, I suddenly had an odd sense of deja vu.

The election allows millions of ordinary people to pick their own political representatives at the urban district level - the only such election on the mainland. Five urban districts in Shenzhen voted for about 900 representatives who will advise and supervise local government administrations for the next five years.

Yet, the build-up to the vote, over the past few weeks, bordered on the absurd. The authorities tried every means to influence the outcome, fearing the election would let in 'troublemakers' - people who happen to have an independent mind and are not friends, relatives or man-servants of the local cadres.

Many activists planning to run as candidates found they could not even get registered as voters - for the most far-fetched of reasons. These included failing to produce a certificate proving that they have never committed a crime - or, in the case of married couples, not having a medical statement showing that the wife has received birth-control surgery.

Several independent-minded activists were summoned, questioned and harassed until they 'voluntarily' gave up and shut up. As a result, almost all the final candidates in the election are chaps like our dear Baldrick.