Elections in Wukan are like buses. Nothing, then three come along at once. Last week the rebellious fishing village in Guangdong province, southern China, voted in a party-like atmosphere for members of an election committee. This weekend they will pick ombudsmen. Finally, next month – if they are not sick of all this voting – they will elect new village leaders to replace the ones they chased out in December. With such a whirl of civic activity, it’s amazing they get any fishing done.

The festival of would-be democracy follows an extraordinary chain of events that began in September when villagers ransacked the offices of local leaders and attacked the police station. They were angered by a series of allegedly corrupt deals depriving them of much of the village’s communal land.

Police retaliated by beating protesters and arresting leaders, one of whom died in custody. In December, protesters struck back, taking control of the village. In a tenser version of the 1949 British comedy Passport to Pimlico, in which residents of a London district declare independence, Wukan barricaded itself off from the rest of China. It set up a media centre and what it cheekily termed a foreign ministry.