- BEIJING (Reuters) - Delegates
to China's Communist Party congress offered the first clues to a leadership
succession on Tuesday after a preliminary vote on a new crop of leaders
expected to replace President Jiang Zemin and others this week.
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- One delegate said Vice President Hu Jintao was the only
member of the current seven-man leadership on a list of candidates for
the new Central Committee, in the first clear indication that Jiang and
the other five would step down.
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- "I did not see their names on the list," said
the delegate after a trial vote for the body of more than 360 members to
be formally elected on Thursday, the last day of the 16th congress.
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- Hu, 59, has long been expected to take over from Jiang
as party chief after leaders over 70, including parliament chief Li Peng
and Premier Zhu Rongji, retire from the seven-strong Politburo Standing
Committee.
-
- Jiang will wield power in retirement by packing the new
leadership with at least four allies, having his political theory written
into the party constitution and maybe even staying on as head of the military,
party sources and analysts say.
-
- But until now, delegates to the five-yearly congress
have maintained a strict code of silence on a leadership change billed
as the first orderly succession in Communist China.
-
- With no official word, rumors have circled that Jiang
is reluctant to go and it was still unclear earlier this week whether his
rival -- party number four Li Ruihuan -- would retire since he is only
68.
-
- Chinese sources said anyone not on the list of candidates
for the Central Committee would almost definitely not hold seats on the
new Politburo or its Standing Committee.
-
- But Jiang could still stay on as head of the Central
Military Commission (CMC) -- as his predecessor Deng Xiaoping did -- after
leaving the Central Committee, they said.
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- CHOREOGRAPHED VOTE
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- Other delegates refused to say who was on or off the
candidate list, highlighting the sensitivity of the most dramatic reshuffle
since purges following a crackdown on student protests around Tiananmen
Square in 1989.
-
- "We must keep this secret. It is our right,"
said a delegate from the southwestern province of Guizhou. "Let's
not talk about this for the time being. The result of the voting will come
out in just a few days."
-
- But two delegates said there were more than 360 full
and alternate seats available on the new Central Committee, with about
20 more candidates than seats.
-
- The leadership changes have been thrashed out in advance
through horse-trading between retiring leaders anxious to preserve political
power and protect family interests, but must go through a choreographed
election process at the congress.
-
- The 2,114 delegates formally elect a new Central Committee
of about 300 on Thursday, which holds its first meeting the next day to
choose the Politburo and Standing Committee.
-
- But delegates discuss the candidate list and hold preliminary
votes to make sure everything goes according to plan, party sources say.
-
- "We held elections this morning. Tomorrow morning
we will also vote," said a delegate from one southern province.
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- READING TEA LEAVES
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- The final lineup of the new Standing Committee will not
be known for sure until the new leaders emerge from behind a screen at
a brief ceremony in the Great Hall on Friday.
-
- But Chinese sources and many analysts say Jiang has secured
a seat for his main protege, Zeng Qinghong, who stepped down as head of
the party's organization department last month.
-
- Several party sources also list three more Jiang allies
-- former Beijing party boss Jia Qinglin, Shanghai's ex-party chief Huang
Ju, and Vice Premier Wu Bangguo -- as members of the new Standing Committee.
-
- At least three Chinese sources with close party links
say the Standing Committee will be expanded to nine, with two more Jiang
allies on it.
-
- Li Ruihuan's absence from the Central Committee candidate
list suggested Jiang had succeeded in ousting his long-term rival, who
is regarded as a relative liberal.
-
- Until recently, Li was tipped to stay on the Standing
Committee and take over China's parliament next year.
-
- However, it is still not clear whether Jiang will retain
his position as chairman of the CMC, which commands the 2.5 million-strong
armed forces.
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- Deng left the Central Committee in 1987 but remained
head of the CMC for two more years, and paramount leader until his death
in 1997. His theories on economic reform were added to the party constitution
at a congress that year.
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- Jiang has tried to emulate Deng by having his own theory,
the "Three Represents" which sanctions private entrepreneurs
joining the party, written into its charter at the congress.
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- The congress will change the charter to say the party
is the "vanguard" of the whole Chinese people, not just the working
class, and to put the Three Represents alongside the theories of Marx,
Lenin, Chairman Mao Zedong and Deng.
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- Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of computer giant Legend and a
congress delegate, confirmed one of the planned changes.
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- "Don't private entrepreneurs belong to the list
of Chinese people? So naturally, they can be members of the vanguard,"
he told reporters.
-
- (With additional reporting by Jonathan Ansfield and John
Ruwitch)
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