Deng Seen in Public for First Time Since July

Senior leader Deng Xiaoping today made his first public appearance since July, voting in citywide elections in the capital. The 86-year-old leader, widely believed to be suffering from cancer, appeared frail.

Deng was shown on state television moving steadily but a bit shakily up to the voter registration table, where he sat down to sign his name. His daughter held his arm as he walked to the ballot box and dropped his ballot in.

However, the official New China News Agency described Deng as walking vigorously to the polling station inside Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party’s vast, red-walled compound in central Beijing.

“With a beaming smile on his face, Deng received a voting slip from a young election worker after showing his elector’s card,” the agency said.

Deng had not made a confirmed appearance in public since July when he visited the Asian Games Village. A Japanese newspaper recently reported that a tourist saw Deng and President Yang Shangkun eating dinner in a public restaurant, but there was no official confirmation.

Since the last sighting of Deng, rumors had circulated that he was on his deathbed, as happens whenever he is long absent.

Although Deng retired nearly a year ago from his last official post, there is fear that his death will leave a power vacuum, with no single leader strong enough to hold together competing ideological and regional factions.