The Communist Party of China (CPC), the world's largest governing party, will convene its 20th national congress in the second half of the year.
The quinquennial event will review the work of the past five years, chart the course for the future, and elect new central leadership.
The Party is in the process of electing delegates to the congress, which started in November 2021.
Here is a closer look at how the Party elects 2,300 delegates from its over 95 million members.
WHAT IS THE PROCEDURE
The delegates are elected from 38 electoral units, including provincial-level regions, central authorities, the central financial sector, and Beijing-based centrally-administered state-owned enterprises.
The whole procedure generally consists of five parts: the nomination of candidates by Party members; a nominee review; public notification of the candidates for feedback; candidate shortlists; and the final vote in each electoral unit.
The elected delegates will be vetted by a qualification review committee before the national congress.
For example, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region elected by secret ballot 48 delegates to attend the 20th national congress at a two-day CPC Guangxi regional congress closed Friday.
The final vote took place following a meeting of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Committee of the CPC on April 17, which came up with a 55-people list of preparatory candidates for the CPC National Congress delegates.
The process has engaged 100 percent of Guangxi's primary-level Party organizations and 99.15 percent of Party members, said local authorities, adding that Party members working on the frontline accounted for more than 70 percent of all the nominees.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE
The delegates should be exemplary members of the Party and meet stringent criteria. Political integrity is put first in the assessment. According to the Party leadership, the candidates should first and foremost have solid ideals and convictions and high moral standards.
Qualified delegates must be clean and honest. Corrupt officials will be banned from being nominated. In Guizhou Province, a negative list has been established to disqualify those who violate political discipline and rules or have problems with integrity, among others, for nomination as delegates.
Different electoral units have their specific requirements for selecting candidates. Nominees in Tibet must have a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation and take a clear-cut stand against separatism.
"The candidates' overall performance and qualifications were taken into careful consideration when I made my recommendations," said Zhao Dianbang, a veteran CPC member from Qinghai Province who has been a Party member for more than 50 years.
