In the villages, people live under People's Commune system that controlled their lives and the economy completely. In term of political control, the People's Communes model is a good thing for the Communist Party. All the peasants work and lived like slaves, with no rights to say anything about production. This caused a crisis for production. So the People's Commune no longer controls everything, as it did in Mao's day.
Farmers can even borrow money to support their harvesting.
The planned economic system in agriculture has been broken. The Chinese Communist leaders, clever as they are, have realized that they need a new system to manage and control this pressure in the countryside. This is what leads them to the concept of village elections. If you believe these village elections are spreading democracy, you are actually helping the communist propaganda machine and helping the Communist Party stay in power. There were also elections in the Soviet Union and more recently have been some in Iraq.