China: Direct elections promised

“Just a day ahead of the 40th anniversary of the start of Mao's mass murdering Cultural Revolution, which plunged China into years of chaos and pitted faction against faction within the ruling Communist Party (and children against their parents), the heirs to that organization announced a plan that is designed to encourage and expose differences among presumed party factions ^[1],” writes China Confidential‘s Confidential Reporter of her previous day's post in which she writes that “the ruling Communist Party announced Monday that it would hold local elections for the first time. An offical described the move as ‘an enormous step.’ ^[2]
“Leading up to the 2007 National People's Congress (NPC) meeting, elections of leaders at provincial, county, city and township levels will be held.”