China's parliament has expelled 45 lawmakers from the northeastern province of Liaoning over a bribery and vote-buying scandal, a rare ejection that suggests political jostling is underway ahead of next year’s 19th Communist party congress.
The Congress, which takes place in Autumn, is a key date in China’s political calendar and will anoint the new 25-person Politburo and its standing committee.
The dismissals, which leave the National People's Congress with 2,894 deputies, follow a scandal that challenged the "bottom line" of China's political system, according to Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC standing committee and member of the Communist party's elite Politburo standing committee.