China’s top legislature has passed legal revisions that expand the powers of its standing committee to appoint and dismiss top leadership positions in the chief administrative body of the country.

The move on Thursday marks the first amendment to China’s Organic Law since its enactment 38 years ago.

Political scientists have told Apple Daily that the changes made by the National People’s Congress will effectively give the Communist Party complete control over the government’s executive arm, led by the State Council, where Premier Li Keqiang is in charge.

Under the amended law, the NPC will be able to deliberate behind closed doors candidates for positions on the State Council and decide on the appointments and dismissals of people proposed by the premier. Previously, the premier would make recommendations that were put to a vote at the NPC.

NPC Standing Committee vice chairperson Wang Chen said the improvements of the Organic Law “ensures that the NPC’s work remains on the correct political path” and “is crucial in making sure the party will lead the nation’s committees and legislature.”

The amendment bill passed with 2,890 votes in agreement, two against and one abstention.

Mainland Chinese political scientist Wu Qiangxiang said that the changes in the law were meant to pave the way for President Xi Jinping’s re-election next year, and were also an important step to put the NPC under the further control of the party.

Democratic mechanisms are built into the NPC, where a voting system exists that supposedly represents the population’s voices. But by writing Leninist “democratic centralism” into its tenets, the move actually gave power back to the party’s top leadership and was anti-democratic, Wu told Apple Daily.

There was currently nothing that could destabilize the central government’s authority, political commentator Johnny Lau said. Yet, Xi’s insistence in further consolidating power through amending the Organic Law showed a strong personal desire for complete control and his fear of losing power, Lau said.

The NPC had long been considered only a rubber stamp anyways, and the latest changes would further allow the central government to use the legislature to push through changes which “on the surface are legal, but actually are unreasonable,” Lau said.

Wang Zhiqiang, a scholar of the Chinese constitution, also said that Xi was making use of the amendment to take away the remaining weak vestiges of power left for Li, head of the State Council. Ultimately the NPC was not the one whose power had increased, as it was controlled by the top leader of China, he told Radio Free Asia.

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