The recent political tremor in Chongfu Village of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Northwest China taught local cadres that public endorsement is just like water.

Like most other villages across China, Chongfu voted for their own leadership, which comprised a village head, women's affairs leader and an accountant, in February last year.

According to the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees -- now the standard establishment of grassroots autonomy in rural China -- the elected village cadres should serve a three-year term.

But about 13 months later, on March 20, Chongfu villagers dumped the cadres of their own choice.

The constituency revolt was a result of resentment that the villagers' committee, a product of grassroots democracy meant for democratic self-governance, became undemocratic.

Frustrated that their elected caretakers disregarded their concerns and managed public accounts improperly, more than 300 of the 700 people in the village signed a bill to renounce them.

In a landslide vote, the trio was discarded.

Before the villagers appealed for their axing, the township authorities -- the local administration that directly oversees village autonomy -- had dismissed the village Party secretary.

Voting in and then removing their leaders, Chongfu villagers got a taste of the benefits of democracy. But it is more than a lesson for Chinese villages.

The legal framework of grassroots autonomy works well because there is interaction between the chosen and their constituency.

There has been a lot of talk about supervision and public servants' accountability. No supervision is reliable, however, until the kind of mechanism at work in Chongfu is soaked up into higher levels of leadership.

Chongfu is expected to elect a new leadership in May.

Surely the new team will learn from the fate of its predecessors and be more responsive to the opinions of constituents.

(China Daily April 8, 2003)