Party Congress finalises list of top Chinese officials

On the fourth day of their brain storming Congress to select new set of Chinese leaders to replace the current lot, ruling Communist Party on Sunday finalised a list of candidates for the 365-member Central Committee, an administrative and policy body, that would govern the country for next 10 years.

The 2,270 delegates attending 18th Congress of the Party began to deliberate on a proposed name-list of nominees for Central Committee and members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

From the Central Committee, 24-member Politbuto is chosen and from that a Standing Committee of nine or seven leaders is selected. This would include president and prime minister.

The list of new leaders was expected to be announced on November 14, the last day of the Congress.

Significantly the proposed name-list was submitted to the delegates by Vice President Xi Jinping who has been projected as the new leader to succeed President Hu Jintao both as President and General Secretary of the Party.

Xi, 59, has been designated as the Secretary-General of the Congress.

Hu said in his report at the opening of the congress that the Party should appoint officials on their merits without regard to their origins, select officials on the basis of both their moral integrity and their professional competence with priority given to the former, and promote officials who are outstanding in performance and enjoy popular support.

"We should improve the system of intra-Party election, and standards governing multi-candidate nomination and election, and create procedures and a climate that fully embody the will of voters," Hu has said while calling for stern measures to crackdown on corruption.