Propostas para democratizar Hong Kong

Pan-democrats call for democratically-elected CE by 2012

South China Morning Post
September 7, 2009

The pan-democrats on Monday called for functional constituencies to be abolished and for a democratically elected legislature by 2012.

The call came after pan-democratic party lawmakers met on Monday afternoon to discuss the territory's future and renew their calls for more progress on the introduction of universal suffrage.

Former Executive and Legislative Councilor Allen Lee Peng-fei said the pan-democrats had also agreed on a lower nomination level for chief executive candidates.

He said the lawmakers wanted a new political model whereby anyone who got 50 nominations from the election committee - or who could get a significant level of public support - should be eligible to stand for the position of chief executive.

“It takes 50 to nominate as a candidate for chief executive — or you get 100,000 electors to nominate,” Lee told local radio.

Lee said the pan-democrats would like this model to be used for the 2012 election. But the former Liberal Party founding member said pan-democrats would “not resist too much” if this idea was not adopted until 2017.

The proposal includes keeping 60 seats in the Legislative Council, with half the lawmakers being elected from single-seat districts, and half under the current proportional list system. This would mean functional constituencies would be a thing of the past.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-Kuen is expected to begin discussions on constitutional reform later this year.

However, the government has said several times it would only discuss how the 2012 elections for chief executive and positions on the Legislative Council can be made more democratic. It has said it will leave proposals for full democratic voting in 2017 and 2020 to the next administration.

In Hong Kong, only 30 of the 60 Legco seats are directly elected by the people (through geographical constituencies), with the other 30 elected by 28 functional constituencies.