Province must break corruption chains

Vice-Premier Ma Kai (L) attends a meeting of Shanxi delegates during the two sessions, March 5, 2015. [Photo/Beijing Youth Daily]

So many officials in Shanxi province, North China, have fallen in the anti-corruption campaign that the province now has about 300 official positions vacant. Comments:

There used to be a joke that called for talents nationwide to compete for the official positions in Shanxi to "change" the local political ecology. The problem is, the local corrupt political ecology is because of the flaws in the system and the lack of proper supervision over power. If these remain unchanged, new officials that go to the province will only be corrupted as well.

Beijing Times, March 26

There are 300 vacancies, yet after months of selection they are only able to fill 16 of them; that shows how cautious the local authorities are in promoting new officials from within. Local disciplinary watchdogs need to perform better to prevent the newly promoted officials from being corrupted.

Xie Chuntao, a professor of politics at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, March 24

One of the problems that caused the rampant corruption in Shanxi is that most of the officials are local residents, who have already formed chains of corruption. Is it possible to promote some officials from outside Shanxi, and give them enough power to break these chains?

Yangcheng Evening News, March 26

It is urgent to fill in the vacancies, and even more urgent to improve the disciplinary supervision mechanism in the province, so that those promoted are not corrupted. What is needed is a system that shuts power in the cage and prevents it from being abused.

Workers' Daily, March 26