When the residents of the small southern Chinese fishing village of Wukan vote in a local election on Wednesday, the person with most at stake will not be one of the 25 candidates.
For Wang Yang, the most powerful Communist party official in Guangdong, China’s wealthiest province, the success or failure of this very unusual experiment in Chinese democracy could have a big effect on his political ambitions.
Wukan became famous last year during protests by thousands of villagers over a land dispute that saw the village sealed off by security forces. Mr Wang’s decision not to resort to a brutal crackdown and instead promise a free village election to placate villagers helped defuse the crisis.
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