A select group of media was allowed into a penned off area in front of the courthouse, where they clamoured to take photos of vehicles entering the court.
Though edited transcripts from the trial were posted online, China’s government has tightly controlled information about Bo’s case, and police erected barriers to stop pedestrians from entering areas around the court.
Passers-by hurried towards a shopping centre, showing little interest in the proceedings.
“Ordinary people don’t know much about these political matters,” a 22-year-old motorcycle driver surnamed Guo said Saturday, as he sheltered from rain outside a noodle restaurant. “Top officials are very distant from our everyday lives.”
Bo poured billions into public works and social housing programmes while party chief of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, where he launched a high-profile anti-crime campaign that won him admirers across China.
Despite his popularity, reports of forced confessions and torture during the crime crackdown horrified Chinese liberals, while some top party leaders saw his ambition as challenging the party’s cherished unity.
The verdict comes as China’s new leadership under President Xi Jinping attempts to show it is cracking down on corruption, which he has said threatens the existence of the Communist Party.
But locals in Jinan expressed a widely held belief that trials of top officials are the outcome of political infighting, rather than purely legal proceedings.
“Bo is the kind of leader ordinary Chinese respect, he did a good job in Chongqing” said Lu Mingcai, a 63-year-old retired chauffeur.
“His mistake is a political one. It’s got nothing to do with whether he was corrupt or not,” Lu said, adding: “Bo will go to prison for sure.”
Liu Qing, a middle-aged market stall owner said: “(Bo) has been sacrificed in a political struggle. I don’t know if he was corrupt. What government official isn’t corrupt these days?”
Despite the life sentence, Bo might not spend all his remaining days in prison. In the past, senior Chinese politicians given prison terms have reportedly been released on medical parole and held under strict security at their family homes.
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