Head of Wukan village reelected

Lin Zulian has been reelected head of a new village committee in Wukan after thousands of residents cast their votes on Monday, despite torrential rains and corruption scandals.

Sun Hanmin, general supervisor of the election announced at 9 p.m. that Lin was elected as the chief of the committee with 5,019 votes.

Another ballot will be held on Tuesday afternoon to elect six other members of the committee, as no candidate had won half of the votes in Monday's election.

A total of 8,160 ballot papers were claimed at the polling station on Monday, out of an electorates of more than 9,000.

Wukan was thrown into the international spotlight in 2011 when residents protested for months against the village committee's illegal land grabs, corruption, violations of financing and election rules.

A rerun of the election, a national tryout of self-governance, democracy and the rule of law, was held in March 2012, and Lin Zulian was elected chief of the committee.

However, March of this year saw more corruption scandals. Yang Semao and Hong Ruichao, deputy chiefs of the village committee, were detained by police over allegations that they took bribes for public projects in the village.