China expanded its campaign against corruption at the weekend, with hundreds of legislators implicated in a vote-buying scandal.
The legislature in central Hunan province suspended 56 lawmakers for doling out more than Rmb110m ($18m) in corrupt payments, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Another 512 county-level legislators, who elect representatives to the provincial assembly, quit after being accused of accepting the bribes.
Hunan’s legislature said the scandal challenged “China’s system of People’s Congresses, socialist democracy, law and party discipline”. The People’s Daily, the Communist party’s flagship newspaper, called yesterday for a “thorough” investigation, to “win the hearts of the people and maintain [their] confidence in the country’s fundamental political system”.