By Lisa Holland, China correspondent
In just three weeks China will get a new President. The Communist Party Congress - China's once-a-decade power transition - will reveal Xi Jinping as the country's next leader.
But it is a power transition which is being overshadowed by the political scandal triggered by the death of the British businessman Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing nearly a year ago.
We travelled to Chongqing to assess how the scandal has affected the Communist Party.
It is the mega city which has lost its guiding star. Chongqing and its surrounding area are home to 30m people - that's half the population of Britain.
It gives you a sense of the power once enjoyed by Bo Xilai - the dominant and ambitious ex-Communist Party boss who transformed it from a drab backwater to a flashy metropolis.
That makes him sound like a hero, and plenty in Chongqing will praise what he did for the city's landscape. But he has now been erased politically - exposed by the Communist Party, which says he was corrupt and caught up in a murder .
Bo Xilai was tipped to go right to the top. Already in the powerful Politburo, he wanted a place in the elite group of nine people known as the Standing Committee.
Former rising star Bo Xilai has been erased from the political map It is rumoured he is being kept at a government guest house on the outskirts of Beijing. He has now been thrown out of the party and is awaiting trial, expected to be charged with corruption and abuse of power over the murder of Neil Heywood.
In Chongqing it is as if he was never here. There is no visible sign of Bo Xilai. But his presence remains in the sprawling city he inspired.
Designer shops dominate the heart of downtown Chongqing. The skyline is a blizzard of skyscrapers drowned in the smog of city pollution.
The bustling traffic and thronging city used to be ruled with a rod of iron by Bo Xilai - a charismatic Communist Party Princeling. The son of a revolutionary, in the end greed was his downfall, says the Communist Party.
We spoke to people in Chongqing who seem emboldened by the fall from grace of the once all-powerful Bo Xilai.
We had arranged to meet Ren Shiliu at a road junction because he was afraid to be seen openly with foreigners. His son Jianyu has just launched an appeal against a sentence of two years hard labour for re-posting criticism online about Bo Xilai's rousing red campaigns promoting the greatness of the communist party.
It seems a staggering punishment for a small crime of opinion - but in China that is the price to be paid for trying to find a voice.
We drove Ren Shiliu to a backstreet cafe but as we sat outside and discussed his son's case his initial wariness disappeared - he was emboldened by his bitter anger and frustration.
Chongqing and the surrounding area is home to some 30m people He said: "Bo Xilai used the name of the Communist Party and the power the party gives to them in this place. But they abused it."
He told me he misses his son and went to see him in jail. He said: "My son said to me, 'father take care of yourself. I hope you will be the same when I get out of here - then we could sit together and have meals together anytime we want'. He said to me that in 20 years things will be different and my name will be cleared."
Ordinary people in China don't have a voice. As we filmed, passers-by were visibly staggered to hear such public criticism of the communist party to a foreigner.
In China people look over their shoulders, fearing the party's iron grip. Two old ladies held each others' hand, as if they needed reassurance about the risk he was taking. Because, just like his son, Ren Shiliu risks arrest for expressing his frustration.
The Communist Party is trying to present Bo Xilai as one bad apple. But its problem is that most people see the issue of party corruption as much more widespread.
A blogger we spoke to put it even more boldly.
He said: "Everybody feels very angry about corruption but people are unable to express their opinions. There isn't a common voice. There isn't a dissident leader to represent us. So people just have to sit back and watch."
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