Democracy stonewalled in Hong Kong political reform paper

Jul 11, 2007, 15:07 GMT

Hong Kong - A consultation paper on constitutional reform was unveiled in Hong Kong Wednesday but disappointed pro-democracy activists by failing to outline possible models for universal suffrage.

The long-awaited report instead focuses on the questions of whether Hong Kong's chief executive should be elected by universal suffrage in 2012, 2017 or later and whether the nominating committee of 800 members should be expanded.

It also examines how many candidates should be allowed to stand and how many rounds of voting there should be after the candidates have been nominated.

However, despite chief executive Donald Tsang's assurance earlier this year that the paper would present three possible models for democracy, the paper contained no concrete models for democracy.

Beijing officials have already indicated that it may vet nominated candidates for future chief executive elections to weed out any candidates that it sees as being 'unsuitable.'

Such a move would effectively mean that, even if free elections are allowed for the position of chief executive, Hong Kong people would only be able to choose between a list of China-approved candidates.

Unveiling the paper Wednesday, Hong Kong's chief secretary Henry Tang said the government would adopt an open-minded approach and listen to the public views to try to forge a 'broad consensus' on the issue.

However, pro-democracy legislator Emily Lau criticised the paper which she said contained too many options and was designed to be hard for people to understand.

Critics claim the Hong Kong government has shied away from the three options formula for fear that the model supported by the pro-democrats could win overwhelming public support.

Hong Kong is technically entitled to full democracy from 2007 under the 'one country, two systems' arrangement by which it was returned to Chinese rule by Britain in 1997.

Currently, only half of Hong Kong's legislators are directly elected and there is no popular vote for the position of chief executive, who is instead chosen by a largely pro-Beijing election committee.

Around 55,000 people took part in a march demanding democracy in Hong Kong on July 1, the 10th anniversary for the territory's return to Chinese sovereignty.