Hong Kong people reject scrapping of by-elections in public poll

Dec 14, 2011, 12:06 GMT

Hong Kong - Hong Kong people have rejected a government proposal to scrap by-elections in a public consultation exercise, a senior official confirmed Wednesday.

Of 31,000 who responded to the three-month consultation, most were against the idea of abolishing by-elections when a seat in the city's legislature becomes vacant mid-term.

The most favoured of four options put forward by the government was one to retain by-elections but to bar legislators who had resigned, Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Raymond Lam said.

The outcome of the two-month public consultation is a blow for the Hong Kong government, which wanted to ban by-elections altogether after three legislators resigned in 2010 to force by-elections.

The pro-democracy legislators took the action to force what they claimed would be a mini-referendum on democracy in the former British colony, infuriating officials in Beijing.

Hong Kong's Beijing-appointed officials tried to rush through legislation in July to ban by-elections and award seats to candidates from the previous polls if a legislator resigned or died mid-term.

The vote was called off and the public consultation announced after a walk-out by legislators and opposition from a crowd of more than 200,000 people taking part in an anti-government rally.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Lam did not give a detailed breakdown of the responses to the public consultation but said none of the four options received majority support.

'There is no majority view one way or the other so the problem is now with us (the government) to consider the next step,' he said.

'At the moment the government has no decision on the way forward but certainly this is something I have to deal with very soon.'

The government is not obliged to be guided by the public consultation but would face difficulty in forcing through a vote to abolish by-elections after accepting most recipients opposed it.

Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and has limited democracy and freedoms of expression denied to people elsewhere in China. Half its legislators are elected by public vote.