The Party journal 'China Comment' (13/2019) recently stated that village-level elections are flawed with a large bottle of cooking oil being the going rate for securing a single vote in one specific village. It said candidates may spend thousands of yuan on the swing votes of influential local leaders. One candidate was quoted as saying he spent RMB 50,000 buying votes in the first-round election. Before the second-round election, another candidate bought him out for more than RMB 50,000. The election cost the winner hundreds of thousands of yuan in total. The winner recoups the costs by corrupt practices when they take office. It revealed that the CCP CC General Office and the General Office of the State Council recently issued the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Rural Governance", requiring the full implementation of the county-level 'elections' and insisting on resolutely preventing and investigating improper means such as bribery. One of the Party’s solutions is to have candidates vetted by county authorities. Residents will be restricted to electing a village chief from a sanctioned pool of candidates.