From the San Diego Union Tribune:
Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin suffered a political blow when his son and the security chief were left out of the running for seats in the Communist Party Central Committee, sources with ties to the leadership said.The setback, coupled with the arrest of a former secretary to a late vice premier and a son of Shanghai’s disgraced party boss, strengthened the hand of incumbent President Hu Jintao ahead of the party’s five-yearly 17th congress in the autumn.
[Image: Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, from igadi.org.]
Jiang Mianheng, a vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and You Xigui, director of the party’s Bodyguards Bureau, lost in Central Committee straw votes earlier this year, said the sources who requested anonymity.
‘The elections were internal to sound out party members. The two men were unpopular with the masses,’ one source told Reuters.
The pair were not among 2,217 delegates to the 17th congress, and therefore cannot run for seats in the elite Central Committee, which has 198 full and 158 alternate members. [Full Text]
