Before the 18th Party Congress from November 8 that would engineer the once
in a decade leadership change, the accused victim Bo Xilao of China's ruling Communist Party faced expulsion on Friday. He faced allegations of corruption, sex and sleaze and all this happened ahead ahead of a generational change in leadership. President Hu Jintao headed the meeting that decided the fate of after hearing the report of the committee which probed severe violations of discipline by him, official media here reported.
Condemning Bo, 63, regarded as an emerging hard-liner attempting to revive discarded Maoist ideology, the party slammed him saying that in all his assignments including as Commerce Minister he had inappropriate relations with women. state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the committee report as saying: "He took advantage of his office to seek profits for others and received huge bribes personally and through his family.”
His wife Gu Kailai who was given a suspended death sentence for poisoning British businessman Neil Heywood to death was also accused of abusing Bo's position to seek profits for others. The Bo family also accepted a huge amount of money and property from others, the report said.
The Party also took serious note of the incident in which former Police Chief of the Chongqing city, Wang Lijun, escaped to US Consulate fearing reprisals from Bo. Wang was sentenced to 15 years.
The present lot of leaders, including Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao -- all Deng loyalists -- are set to retire by the end of this year and the new set of leaders who would be selected by the Congress would take over from early next year for a five year term. Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier, Li Keqiang are widely projected as successors to Hu and Wen.
Bo was regarded as a charismatic leader popular among the middle and lower middles classes. He had also made it mandatory for Chongqing TV to play old Mao-era revolutionary songs every evening.
While Bo's scandal came at an opportune time for his detractors to condemn him for trial, his entire episode in which Gu entered into millions of dollars of business deals with British businessman Neil Heywood also exposed corruption at the higher echelons of the party.
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