Nanjing National Government During The Election Law Research

Election is a key to democracy. Election law, as legal instrument announced by nation's supreme organs of power and legislation, prescribes principles and organizational procedures of a nation's basic electoral system , and reflects the conditions of the nation's politics and society. Period during the reign of Nanjing government, since the year 1927 has seen the climax of capitalistic electoral system in China. Therefore, a systematical study on the electoral laws of this period will help us further understand the modern China's democratic history,as well as provide insight views about how to amend existing electoral law of our country.During the reign of Nanjing National Government, three nationwide elections had been held, respectively as the preliminaries to national conference and national congress. The laws made for these elections provide exceptional materials for us to study the electoral system of the time. By reviewing the legislation circumstances and content of these laws , we find the electoral law then had been complete in its theory system and complied with the trends of world electuary system. As citizen's right to vote and right to stand for election becomes more common, the method of election turns to be diversified, which is more compatible with China's reality. But formal improvement on electoral law can't cover up its nature of Despotism. As I find in this study, no matter the earlier"Election law of National Conference Representative"or the later"Election law of National Congress Representative", implies an intention of guarding the rule of Kuomintang party. By means of controlling the Kuomintang party committee, asking for swearing an oath before an election and handling election mechanism, Nanjing government can finally decide the result of an election, which means the government was not a democratic regime as it declared to be and a democratic electoral system was not existing indeed. This gap between legislation and reality makes us aware that besides the law itself, a stable social situation ,a democratic and open social environment also play an important role in deciding whether a law system can be realized in realty or not.