Caixin Online reports on the hardships one local woman faced while trying to run as an independent candidate in a Jiangxi election.
Liu Ping wanted to be an everyman’s candidate in a race for a local delegate to the National People’s Congress. She wanted to represent her neighbors in the Yushu District of Xinyu, a city in Jiangxi Province. She gave it her all.
But the high-school educated woman who retired in 2009 from Yuanxingang Equipment and Materials Co., a branch of Xinyu Iron and Steel Group, found all roads blocked.
One apparent reason was that Liu had tried to stand up for worker rights by bringing a local grievance petition to the central government in Beijing. For her activist stance, she was detained by authorities and later released.
In bidding for NPC candidacy, Liu said she spent almost all her time making speeches in a bid for a candidate’s slot after an official election list was posted April 15.
Read more about the independent candidacies movement in China via CDT.
