Seven out of 10 Hong Kong people are happy to wait for democracy

Jan 8, 2008, 2:50 GMT

Hong Kong - More than 70 per cent of Hong Kong people are happy to wait another decade for free elections after Beijing ruled there can be no universal suffrage until 2017, according to a survey Tuesday.

A poll by the city's Chinese University learned 72.2 per cent found it acceptable to wait until 2017 to have free elections for the position of chief executive and 2020 to directly elect all legislators.

Only 21.4 per cent of the 900 interviewees said they found Beijing's timetable for universal suffrage, announced just before the New Year, as unacceptable, despite widespread protests from the city's pro-democracy movement.

China's National People's Congress announced the outline timetable for democracy at the end of December after six months of public consultation over constitutional reform in the former British colony.

Before the announcement, repeated polls indicated a majority of Hong Kong people wanted universal suffrage by 2012, when the next election for chief executive is due to be held.

However, Hong Kong's surging prosperity and booming stock market appears to have blunted the desire for democracy which in 2003 and 2004 brought crowds of 500,000 onto the streets.

Hong Kong is technically entitled to universal suffrage from 2007 under the terms of the mini-constitution by which it has been ruled since reverting to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

China, however, has repeatedly insisted that the introduction of democracy must be gradual and orderly and says the city of 6.9 million is not yet mature enough for universal suffrage.

Currently, only half of Hong Kong's 60 legislators are directly elected and the chief executive is chosen by an 800-member, largely pro-Beijing election committee.