Political systems Prerequisite for the right to vote
Nearly all countries require their residents to have a driving license before they are allowed to drive cars on the road. They do not allow any person to drive without a license. 

They have the individual right to drive a car, but they must prove that they will drive the car responsibly by getting a license.

This practice is well accepted. Nobody argues against this loss of freedom to drive a car without a license.

This concept also applies to voting for the leaders of a country. In order to vote, the resident must be eligible. In most countries, the right is based on being a citizen and above a certain age.

I prefer that an additional requirement should be imposed. The eligible person should also pass a test on knowledge of the country's constitution.

If a person does not know the constitution, he or she should not be allowed to vote. 

In the communist party system in China, the right to vote is given to members of the communist party. The membership represents 9% of all adult citizens. There are 90 million members in the party.

A member of the party is required to study and understand the constitution of China. The constitution enshrines a socialist system under the leadership of the communist party.

If any Chinese citizen does not like the constitution, he or she is free to migrate to another country which is willing to accept them. China does not stop people from leaving the country. They did stop them in the past, but this has changed. 

Hundreds of millions of Chinese nationals travel each year out of China. They return to the country willingly.

In theory, every person who wishes to join the communist party as a member is allowed to do so. In practice, the party does have some additional restrictions on who they accept as their members. Perhaps they have a quota on the number of members in each locality.

I would prefer a system where everybody who wishes to join the party should be allowed to do so. But I am not aware if there are strong reasons to have the quota. 

Even if there is a quota on the members of the party, I would not argue against that practice in principle. I consider 9% to be quite a high proportion of the population.

The members of the party vote for their leaders at the local level, maybe the village that they live in. The village leaders vote for their leaders at the county level. The county leaders vote for the provincial leaders. The provincial leaders vote for the national leaders. 

I prefer this system of election. The party members can be expected to know the candidates in the village well and can make the choice. They are likely to elect the most capable people who are less corrupt and cares about the village.

The election at the higher levels are likely to produce similar outcomes. 

There is no guarantee that this system will prevent the people in power from being corrupt. But if they are corrupt, the voting system can act as a check and the leaders can be removed from power. 

There is also the discipline within the party to deal with corruption and abuse of power. 

Within the party, we can expect leaders to form groups, or cliques. This is part of the natural outcome of social groups. However, this group is not formalized into a party with separate ideologies. All party members have to follow the national ideology as enshrined in the constitution.

I do not hold the view that the communist party system is perfect. I am sure that many people can point out its flaws and abuses. 

However, I wish to argue that there are merits to this system. It is quite democratic, at least within the party, and is able to produce capable and honest (hopefully) leaders to lead the country. 

If we compare the quality of the leaders produced by different countries, I would say that China comes out at or near the top. There are merits to the communist party system.

I am not saying that the communist party system is the best among all the political systems. I only say that it is a good system. I also like some other systems, such as the direct democracy adopted in Switzerland and the proportional representation system adopted in Germany.

I wish to summarize with the following main points:

a) We need a good system to produce the right leaders for a country
b) We should restrict the right to vote to people who are qualified to exercise the right.
c) The system of voting at various levels is probably better than voting directly for the top leaders.

Tan Kin Lian
 

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