A Chinese village has bribery problems, the Officials won't take bribery, but the Villagers want them to.
Villagers in southeastern China are up in arms after missing out on lucrative bribes during a recent village elections when candidates foreswore the practice at a temple, according to a Communist Party monthly magazine.
Officials up for election in Dingmei village in Fujian province had to swear to the party they would not bribe voters, but they went one further and took the same oath at a village temple, magazine Xiao Kang said in its March issue.
Usually the voters criticize that elected officials are getting bribes, but in China it happened the reverse. The candidates had to swear to their party that they will not take bribes and also they swore they won't do bribes at a local village temple. Instead of being happy, the villagers were upset with the elected officials.
One old man was complaining that that the elected village boss earns lot of money, so what is wrong in giving something back to the people. He said in this particular election, when they went to the temple all they got was a bowl of rice and a bottle of beer. He said they are peanuts compared to what they used to get before in previous elections.
The local magazine said villagers used to get up 1,000 Yuan ($130) from other candidates.
"The villagers aren't happy at an election without bribery," an old woman was quoted as saying in the article, headlined "In combating election bribery, the law is no match for praying to the gods."
I am not familiar with Chinese elections, I thought it was one Party communist rule, so elections to choose from the same party?
I hope this is not true in other villages where villagers want the officials to bribe, the residents should be happy that these officials have swore not to take bribery.
