Top Hebei official sacked over vote-buying ahead of reshuffle
An assistant to the governor of the northeastern province of Hebei has been dismissed for buying votes ahead of a reshuffle of provincial officials.
An investigation found Li Junqu, who became the right-hand man to Hebei governor Guo Gengmao in July last year, 'breached reshuffle discipline' before evaluation work started for key personnel arrangements for the provincial people's congress, government and political consultative conference, Xinhua reported.
The 53-year-old resorted to a string of illicit ways to 'obtain recommendation votes', including 'inviting relevant officials to dinner and giving out gifts', it said.
Mr Li was the first casualty of a stepped-up campaign by the Communist Party's personnel agency to stamp out election-related corruption, which has become rampant in recent years.
Last week, an Organisation Department circular urged local governments to 'resolutely prevent and seriously deal with vote-pulling, vote-buying, and other problems'.
Given that the first half of next year would see a sweeping reshuffle of officials at provincial and municipal people's congresses, governments and political consultative conferences, great efforts should be made to investigate any problems related to the reshuffle, the circular said.
'If the problems are found to be true, they should be dealt with strictly, heavily and promptly,' it said.
The department would also join forces with the party's top disciplinary body - the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection - to send inspection teams to provinces and cities to supervise their work on the reshuffle, the circular warned.
The buying and selling of government and party jobs has been increasing in the past year.
According to an earlier Organisation Department report, 192 local party officials were found to have been involved in scandals ranging from buying votes to rigging elections in 121 cases of election irregularities investigated by the department recently. As a result, the appointments of 613 people had been annulled.
A high-profile case was that Li Tangtang, vice-governor of Shaanxi province , who was given a severe disciplinary warning earlier this year for making phone calls and sending text messages to eight people asking them for support in an internal poll.
