Xi Discarded Straw Polls in Picking China Leaders, Xinhua Says
- President consulted 57 sitting and retired party officials
- Straw polls ‘put too much emphasis on the number of votes’
China's Xi Jinping Consolidates His Power
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President Xi Jinping discarded straw polls used in the past to pick China’s top leaders, and instead made decisions based on direct consultations with dozens of Communist Party officials.
A lengthy article by the official Xinhua News Agency late Thursday gave new details on the opaque process for how China picks its leaders. The article said that Xi led a task force that started working in early 2016 to assess potential candidates, and between April and June of this year he personally spoke with 57 incumbent and retired party leaders about who should get promotions.