Under existing law, each rural deputy represents a population four times than in urban areas. That means that one rural NPC deputy represents 960,000 rural people, while each urban NPC deputy represents 240,000 urban people. Legal scholars said the amendment reflects the transition of China’s urban and rural society. The current imbalance started in 1953 when the first Electoral Law was passed. At the time, rural population greatly outnumbered urban citizens. The rule was to ensure that urban deputies would not be greatly outnumbered.

While China’s state media carries headlines such as “China's rule by law boosted by equal political rights and equal life compensation in urban and rural areas” and “One step nearer equality”, netizens’ responses are more skeptical.

Netizens from nfdaily.cn question the credibility and limited public participation of elections in China:

1 # 网友 2009-10-28 10:18:40: 当某一权利仅仅是纸面权利，而不被坐实时，大家都不重视它就在所难免。而不重视的结果是，让这一权利更加流于形式. 这么多年在外面遇见很多黎民百姓，问过很多人，结果都和我一样从来不曾有用过一次选举权的事。一切还是务实点好。许多空话对百姓又有什么意义。

While a right merely exists on paper but not in practice, people will not attach importance to it. The result is that this right will only become a formality. These years, I’ve asked a lot of people. Many, me included, simply haven’t ever exercised the right to vote. Be more pragmatic. These are just empty words to common people.

6 # 网友 2009-10-29 23:47:33: 选举制度无论怎样改，内定人选早就安排好了

No matter how you reform it, the preferred candidates are arranged in advance.

Earlier in September, a Southern Metropolitan Weekend article on the reform attracted similar comments:

Mameng 2009-09-17: 其实现在就算这四分之一的选举权都没有充分的给农民行使啊.很多农民这一辈子都没亲眼见过“人大代表”为何方神圣

In fact, farmers didn’t even have the chance to exercise their “one quarter” election right in the past. Many simply haven’t seen an NPC delegate in their lifetime.

One also questions the need for adjustment based on the urban/rural population ratio in the first place:

foxhtj 2009-09-18: 如果构成人民的主体是农民，为什么人代会不能成为农民大会，何况是在没有农会的情况下，难道仅仅是因为按马教教义，工人阶级是统治阶级，高人一等？那又何必上山下乡呢

If farmers make up the bulk of the population, why couldn’t they form the bulk of the People’s Congress? Is it just because Marxism-Leninism stresses that the working class should be the ruling class? If so, what’s the need of the “Down to the Countryside” Movement?

Obviously, more far-reaching issues lie beyond the reform. 孫嘉業 of Hong Kong’s Mingpao provides an analysis:

不過，雖然近幾屆全國人大農村代表比例增加，但真正的農民代表人數與毛澤東時代相較卻不增反減。在3000多名代表中，真正的農民僅百名左右，很多農村人大代表是鄉鎮幹部。即使在毛澤東時代，農村選出的人大代表又能在多大程度上代表農民利益，頗成疑問。在國家工業化的進程中，農民的利益總是最先被犧牲掉的。

Although the proportion of rural delegates has increased recently, their absolute number has declined compared with the Mao’s era. Among the 3,000 NPC delegates, only around a hundred are real farmers. Many rural delegates are village officials. Even back in Mao’s era, the extent to which rural delegates represented farmers’ interest was also questionable. In the ongoing industrialization, the farmers are always the first to sacrifice.

真正增加農民在國家政治生活中的話語權，單靠增加農民選出的人大代表的數量是不足夠的。正如現今的工人代表亦未能充分代表工人利益一樣，要徹底改革人大代表産生方法，就應落實人民的選舉權和被選舉權，擴大選舉競爭性，打破身分職業的界限，做實地域代表制，如此，「幾分之一」的困擾，亦隨之化為無形。

To really increase farmers’ representation in national politics, it is not enough to increase the number of delegates elected by farmers. Similarly, workers’ rights in today’s China are not sufficiently reflected by workers’ representatives. To completely reform the formation of NPC delegates, China needs to implement people’s rights to elect and be elected, increase the competitiveness of elections, abolish restrictions based on occupation and identity, and ensure equitable geographical representation. If so, the debate on “fractional” voting rights would be solved.

First, a child sex abuse scandal broke out on Oct. 13, involving, among others, three members of PM Yulia Tymoshenko's parliament faction (to learn more, read this article at Abdymok and this Kyiv Post editorial).

A week later, on Oct. 19, the presidential campaign officially kicked off, with the election scheduled to take place on Jan. 17, 2010. On Oct. 24, thousands of people from all over Ukraine were brought to Kyiv's Independence Square to cheer for PM Tymoshenko at a huge rally celebrating the official launch of her campaign (for photos, video and thoughts on the event, see this post at Ukrainiana).

On Oct. 26, Ukraine's interior minister Yuri Lutsenko announced that “a network of the extreme Islamic movement al-Takfir wal-Hijra, which is banned by many countries in the world, is spreading in the Crimean territory of Ukraine,” and its members were planning to kill Mustafa Jemilev, the leader of the Crimean Tatars.

Finally, on Oct. 30, after a few days of alarming reports on an outbreak of respiratory illness in western Ukraine, the first swine flu-related death was confirmed, and PM Tymoshenko ordered Ukraine's schools closed and public gatherings - including election campaign rallies - banned for at least three weeks; restrictions on non-urgent travel inside Ukraine may also be imposed. According to WSJ.com, Ukraine's president Victor Yushchenko canceled his upcoming campaign rally “where he had been due to announce his election agenda, telling journalists that 11 people had died of H1N1, contradicting a Health Ministry report of only one fatality. An aide and a ministry official said Mr. Yushchenko may have made a mistake.”

Below is what Anglophone bloggers are writing about this latest development - the flu outbreak.

Ukrainiana:

At least 61 people are in critical condition. H1N1 has been officially confirmed in seven cases. Schools and kindergartens in nine oblasts have been closed: Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Zakarpattya, Chernivtsi, Rivne, Volyn, Khmelnytsk and Vinnytsya.

“Ukraine has entered a flu epidemic, of the so-called California (swine) type. As of October 29, we have 951 people hospitalized. Unfortunately, we have to note 30 fatalities,” Minister of Healthсare Vasyl Knyazevych said at a briefing Friday.

More recent reports bring the death toll to 37. […]

MoldovAnn:

The H1N1 virus has finally arrived in Ukraine, and along with it a big ole dose of overreaction and panic. Reports vary on the number of infected and number of deaths attributable to swine flu, but there seems to be clear consensus that those who have died waited too long to seek medical attention. Then again, knowing the medical care available in regional towns and villages, it’s hard to imagine how going to the clinic or hospital would have really helped many of them - sad to say.

Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, in an attempt to scare the living bejeezes out of people, oops, I mean protect the population, has extended the autumn school break for another 3 weeks and advised people to avoid public gatherings. Once the announcement hit the wires this afternoon, parents started panicking - the flu immediately forgotten as they tried to figure out what the hell to do about childcare for another 3 weeks. Ex-pats were openly hoping the “quarantine” wouldn’t affect the international schools.

I saw three people wearing masks today, and another half-dozen covering their noses and mouths with scarves. Igor went to several pharmacies to buy echinacea and flu medicine, but no luck. Every place around us was sold out of both. So he bought a dozen lemons and insisted I drink the “family recipe” for good health - a potent concoction of vodka, lemon juice and honey. […]

Foreign Notes:

LEvko is astonished at the panic in Ukraine and the way over-the-top reaction from the government and politicians over the swine flu epidemic which has hit the country. There is even talk of the president establishing a state of emergency and possibly postponing the presidential elections.

[…]

Ukrainian politicians would do better to take a good look at Ukraine's appalling life expectancy figures. Major causes of premature deaths in the country are the smoking of cigarettes and excessive alcohol consumption. A ban on advertising these products and restricting their availability would help save countless lives, but it won't happen because there's too much money being to made from their sale. Much easier to show “decisive leadership” and determined action over the flu epidemic, and scare the the population out of its wits - no doubt increasing the sales of cure-all vodka even more…

p.s. I ‘phoned the official goverment swine flu information hot-line today…all I heard was crackling..

Windows to Russia!:

[…] Think maybe this has to do more with control of people at election time than the flu? […]

Twitter user Victor Kotusenko/roxolanus:

ok, now we are getting this h1n1, it's coming. oxoline ointment in my nose every day, washing my hands often, what else? I guess sleep more)

***

mild panic in Kyiv today as h1n1 cases officially confirmed

***

I would call it concern rather than panic in Ukraine, although people are scared by media. but medical services seem to react. we'll c […]

Shokeir writes:

Zeinobia shared the top 10 most influential people in Egypt according to Shokeir's survey:

First of all we do not have these kinds of lists in Egypt regularly , second you must know that this was held on an Egyptian blog , the participants are considered a very small sample from the Egyptian society “More than 120 participants on his blog and more than 300 participants in the event on the face book” and some may considered it as unrepresentative sample still most of the answers surprisingly represent the views of most Egyptian people as I see it.

Saving the best for last, Zeinobia shared the top 9:

In 10th place for 168 points The Egyptian National football team trainer Hassan Shahata.
In 9th place for 181 points businessman Naguib Sawiris.
In 8th place for 200 points president Hosni Mubarak. “26 votes”
In 7th place for 200 points journalist Ibrahim Eissa . “46 votes”
In 6th place for 202 points businessman Ahmed Ezz.
In 5th place for 215 points scientist Ahmed Zowail.
In 4th place for 262 points TV hostess Mona El-Shazely.
In 3rd place for 325 points footballer Mohamed Abu-Tarika.
In 2nd place for 364 points Gamal Mubarak.

As for Egypt's most influential figure,

Now to my surprise :

In 1st place for 496 points comes Islamic TV preacher Amr Khalid.
With no doubt that the previous nine except for Ahmed Zoweil has played an important and influential role in our lives in 2009 but Amr Khalid !!??

Zeinobia is aware that:

this survey came at the seasonal peak of Khalid’s popularity after his Ramadan TV shows this year contributed much to this result besides of course the role of religion in our lives.

But she still wonders if he deserves to come first in the list.

At the website Voto x Uruguay [es] (I Vote for Uruguay), there are many videos with messages of support for this motion by Uruguayans living abroad. who want the right to vote. There were videos submitted from Canada, Spain, France, and the United States. This video created in the Spanish city of Ferrol shows a group of Uruguayan ex-pats, who gathered to simulate a vote, as a way to show their support for their right to vote.

However, the result on election day was “No,” with only 36.93% voting “Yes.”

The other plebiscite that attracted more attention and caused more sad and surprise reactions, was the question that attempted to annul the Law of Expiration [es]. This current Uruguayan law establishes that the crimes committed by the military and the police during the last civic-military dictatorship, which included multiple violations of human rights, would remain with amnesty.

The United Nations has observed the law, and it has also been repudiated by the Organization of American States [es]. However, in the end the vote results to annul the law reached 47.36%, and it did not reach the necessary 50% + 1.

This result caused strong and sad reactions from the various online communities. In Facebook, for example, in the two days following the vote, there were a large number of groups created, such as Parliament Should Annul the Law of Expiration [es], I Cannot Believe that the Law was not Annulled [es], National Mourning [es], and I Will Never Forget [es].

For some, like 19-year-old Mauricio P. Milano of the blog Montevideo Blogger [es] writes why he neither voted “no,” nor “yes” in the question:

Aunque ya saben que afortunadamente no me tocó vivir la época de la dictadura en Uruguay, con los pocos años que tengo ya he vivido lo suficiente como para escuchar cientos de relatos sobre esta historia, a favor de los militares y a favor de los tupamaros. Quizás el eclecticismo que me caracteriza sea propio de una generación que vino después que se calmaron las aguas, como la mía; pero la opinión que he venido a formar de todo esto es que ambos grupos estuvieron mal, hubo crímenes (secuestros, asesinatos) de los dos lados y en realidad ninguno de ellos puede lavarse las manos de lo que han hecho. Esto es históricamente innegable. Y no voy a volver a comentar lo hipócrita que es el simple hecho de que, ante tal evidencia, uno de los presidenciables en estas elecciones nacionales pertenezca al grupo de los tupamaros, porque ya me expresé sobre esto en la primera parte de este post (click acá para leer).

Lo que quiero decir hoy, a favor de la justicia y del derecho de elección que tienen quienes estuvieron involucrados en esta historia, es que considero inaceptable que mi generación deba cargar con la decisión de anular o no la Ley de Caducidad. Por el simple hecho de que no lo vivimos y nunca vamos a entender la verdadera profundidad de los conceptos que encierra, porque no tenemos nada que ver con eso. En pocas palabras, no tenemos por qué asumir las cagadas que hicieron los que vinieron antes que nosotros. Y decir esto no es mirar para el costado. En todo caso, es mirar para adelante. La sociedad, como cada una de las personas que la compone, tiene heridas. Y como heridas que son, es obvio que arden. Pero como heridas que son, cuanto más se las revuelva, más van a tardar en cerrar. No voy a dejar que lo que pasó antes contamine a mi generación, no quiero esa enfermedad social.

Finally, in Asi Ta'l Mundo, Botija [es], there are thoughts on why the law was not annulled. He writes that these plebiscites should not be conducted on the same day as elections because too many are overwhelmed and that the information does not arrive as it should.