[Xinhua is the official news agency of the People's Republic of China]

LHASA (Dec. 7) XINHUA - The Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China has completed the election of people's congresses at the township level.

Nearly 1.2 million people from the 915 towns across the region cast their votes to elect over 31,500 delegates of township people's congresses, and 3,361 government employees at the township level.

Among the new delegates, 99 percent, or 31,485 are Tibetans or people from other ethnic minorities, while the number of female delegates is 6,417, 20.3 percent of the total.

Local authorities said that compared with the last election in 1993, the number of voters is up by 0.5 percent, which indicates that people's enthusiasm for democratic elections is on the rise.