BEIJING — In an unlikely coda to the citizen takeover last month of Wukan, a village in southern China whose furious residents evicted the authorities over a land dispute, the local Communist Party has selected the protest leader to be the village’s new party secretary.

Addressing the grievances that led the villagers to seize power in the first place — the land dispute and the suspicious death of one protest leader — appears to be another matter altogether.

The new party secretary is Lin Zuluan, a 67-year-old retired businessman whom local party members chose in an election on Sunday. Mr. Lin leads an ad hoc committee that has run the village since Dec. 11, when town leaders began to flee rather than confront thousands of enraged residents.

In the succeeding 10 days, as the police ringed Wukan in seeming preparation to retake it, the committee stage-managed a succession of colorful protests that drew worldwide attention to its cause.