Villagers on the run after row over election

At least 13 villagers - including three members of an election supervising body - have been detained and others are on the run almost a month after a dispute over the election of the village chief of Raolefu, a rural area on the outskirts of Beijing.

The trouble occurred on the evening of July 27 when villagers waiting for the result noticed that 51 ballots were missing in the final count of the election battle between challenger Song Jianzhong , who needed just five more votes to beat incumbent village chief and Communist Party secretary Wei Jiandong .

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