Congratulations to the CCP

Among those congratulating the Chinese Communist Party on reaching the grand old age of 90 years old was one Boris Gryzlov, who remarked that the CCP had ” weathered war flames and various hardships and led the Chinese people on the road toward peace and prosperity”.  Conicidentally, he’s also the very same Boris Gryzlov who was quoted in Time  saying “Parliament isn’t a place for political discussions”.  He’s also the same Boris Gryzlov who defended electoral violations in the 2007 Russian election by saying “They in no way put in doubt the final result. The fact that these violations have been registered shows that we have a transparent ballot.”

Mwai Kibaki sent in his congratulations, and he should know all about poltical reform since he was…er… accused of electoral fraud in the 2007/8 Kenyan elections.  The Independent Reviews Commission noted that during the Kenyan elections ” there were too many electoral malpractices from several regions perpetrated by all the contesting parties to conclusively establish which candidate won the December 2007 Presidential elections. Such malpractices included widespread bribery, vote buying, intimidation and ballot-stuffing by both sides, as well as incompetence from the Electoral Commission of Kenya”.  The head of a local democracy watchdog,  the Institute of Education in Democracy, said on the day of Kibaki’s swearing-ine that “This is the saddest day in the history of democracy in this country. It is a coup d’etat,”

Projects that were supposed to highlight the technical achievements of the CCP completed in time for the celebrations have included:

• A new high speed rail link connecting Beijing and Shanghai which has suffered three malfunctions in two days that resulted in scores of late arrivals.  When asked if the trains used any Japanese technology, Wang Yong Ping, the spokesman for China’s Ministry of Railways scoffed at the suggestion, saying  “the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway and Japan’s Shinkansen can’t even be raised in the same breath, because many of the technologies employed by China’s high-speed rail are far superior to those used in Japan’s Shinkansen.”

• Another flagship construction project was a new road in Kunming that promptly collapsed down the cliff that it was built on a mere day and a half after it was “completed” killing two people and injuring ten others.

• Finally, the chief engineer, Shao Xin Peng, has reassured everyone (including the BBC ) that the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is safe for traffic.  Construction workers had told CCTV that the bridge was at least 2 months away from being completed, and reporters found missing bolts, missing safety barriers and even missing lighting.  Thankfully Xin Peng pointed out that “The status of secondary features does not affect the main project or the opening of the bridge.”  So that’s all right then.  Locals have pointed out that the  $US2.3 billion bridge has resulted in only a 10 minute reduction in travel time – compared to the highway that runs parallel to it -and  thanks to the fact that there are only 3 toll booths installed, a 1.5 hour journey is now compressed into a 3 hour wait in the queue at the exit of the bridge.