Nearly six out of 10 Hong Kong people want by-elections abolished

Sep 12, 2011, 6:33 GMT

Hong Kong - Nearly six out of 10 Hong Kong people surveyed would be happy to see by-elections in the former British colony abolished, according to a radio report Monday, in a boost to the government's position.

Fifty-seven per cent of people interviewed by University of Hong Kong researchers said they wanted by-elections caused by the death or resignation of a legislator scrapped.

Less than a third of interviewees wanted to keep the by-elections, government-run radio station RTHK reported.

The survey is a boost to the city's Beijing-appointed government which wants to scrap by-elections, after five pro-democracy legislators used the procedure to stage a protest by resigning last year.

Under the government's proposed alternative, which is the subject of a public consultation exercise ending in October, vacant seats would go to other candidates who stood in the previous poll.

Pro-democracy legislators, who forced the 2010 by-elections to protest against the slow pace of democratization in Hong Kong, are fiercely opposed to the scrapping of by-elections.

Hong Kong currently has limited democracy with half its legislators directly elected. Although it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, it has political freedoms denied to people elsewhere in China.