1909 Chinese provincial elections
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1909 Chinese provincial elections were held to elect the members of the Provincial Assemblies (or Consultative Bureau) of China. The election was held between April and June 1909 in the 22 provinces of China as part of the New Policies as a move toward constitutional monarchy. The Provincial Assemblies were convened on 14 October 1909 and were responsible for electing half of the members of the imperial Advisory Council convened subsequently in 1910. These provincial assemblies survived even after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that founded the Republic of China and replaced the Qing Empire. They were ordered to dissolve by the President Yuan Shikai.
| ||||||||||
1,643 seats in all Provincial Assemblies | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Registered | ~1,700,000 | |||||||||
Turnout | 10–20% | |||||||||
| ||||||||||
Elections held No election |
About 1.7 million men, or 0.42 percent of a population of 410 million, were registered as eligible voters. It was marked as one of the most important episodes of Chinese democracy as "it [was] the first day in Chinese history that people can elect their representative," as promoted by newspaper Shi Pao, although a county council election in Tianjin had been held earlier in 1907.[1] The Constitutionalists gained grounds in the election and became more active in the constitutional movement pushing for the establishment of constitutional monarchy.