Beijing party boss Guo Jinlong a populist politician who's star is rising

Guo Jinlong, a shrewd political survivor and former athlete, found himself in the eye of a storm within days of his appointment as Beijing party chief in early July.

Widely perceived as a loyal henchman of Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao, Guo, 65, was promoted to party boss of the capital on July 3 after less than five years as the capital's mayor. His emergence as a surprise, early winner of the behind-the-scenes horse trading added intrigue in the lead-up to this year's once-a-decade leadership transition.

But before he could savour the limelight,

he was embroiled in a major crisis - and one of the toughest tests of his political career - over a deadly rainstorm.

The heaviest downpour to hit the capital in almost six decades battered Beijing just 18 days after he became party secretary, flooding large swathes of the vast metropolis, triggering landslides on its mountainous outskirts and leaving at least 79 people dead.

Although the authorities claimed it was a natural disaster of unprecedented scale, the unusually heavy toll in a city that hosted the Olympics just four years ago and often boasts of its modern infrastructure sparked nationwide outcry.

Breaking with form, the usually tame state-run media questioned the human errors that had exacerbated the disaster, including the authorities' failure to fix the city's outdated drainage system.

Personally, Guo faced scathing criticism over his government's inept response to the rainstorm, despite an accurate weather forecast a day earlier, and the clumsy handling of its aftermath under a blanket of secrecy.