An important development at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017 has been the dismissal by Xi Jinping of  the system of the straw poll. He dismissed it as a gimmick which could elect the wrong people and, instead, chose face-to-face meetings to select the country’s new leaders. According to Xinhua, before the new leadership line-up was decided, Xi consulted 57 current and retired party and government leaders, while other top leaders listened to an additional 258 ministerial ranking officials and generals for recommendations. In addition, top generals at the Central Military Commission spoke to 32 senior military officers about recommendations for the military representation on the Politburo.

(Comment: The termination of the straw poll method of selection and the changes Xi Jinping introduced not only highlighted Xi Jinping’s power but also dashed hopes for more incremental experiments of the Chinese-style intraparty democracy initiated by Jiang Zemin and expanded by Hu Jintao.)