It was around 10pm on July 27, and Song Jianzhong was just a handful of votes short of unseating Wei Jiandong as village chief of Raolefu, a small village on the outskirts of Beijing. However, when the final tally was done it appeared that Song fell short of the more than 50 per cent majority required to be declared the winner.
But then villagers noticed something - 51 votes were missing from the total number they had cast. They demanded a recount, but Wei, the powerful incumbent village chief and the man in danger of losing the election, made a quick decision. He ordered the police to seize the ballot boxes and take them away.
Several hundred citizens of Raolefu were outraged. Arguing that Wei did not have the authority to make any ruling on the election, and suspecting some sort of misdeed on the part of the incumbent village chief, they refused to allow the 20-odd police to exit the voting area.
'Unless you show us the 51 ballots, you can't take them away,' one villager shouted. 'Close the door, don't let them take the ballots out,' screamed another.
What followed was an all-night stand-off between villagers and police, which lasted until around 2pm the next afternoon, when officials showed up to negotiate. When that failed, at around 3pm, they called in more than 200 regular and riot police, who overpowered the villagers to remove the ballots. Four villagers were dragged away, and are believed to have been charged with obstructing traffic.
In the weeks since, at least another nine villagers have been detained - some with no reason being given. They include Liu Jinfu, the director of the election commission, and two other commission members. The candidate, Song, who was very popular in the village, has not been seen since election night, and is believed to be in hiding.