Hong Kong chief secretary says electoral reform open to future changes
Chief secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said Beijing’s stringent reform framework for the city’s next chief executive election could be amended in future.
Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme this morning, Lam said the National People’s Congress Standing Committee had a constitutional right to revise the electoral reform framework in light of the actual situation if the next Hong Kong government decided to roll out another round of reform.
“At the second step [of the so-called five-step reform procedure], the Standing Committee has to make a decision on how to amend the electoral system,” she said. “It can make a decision based on the actual situation – such as the ways to make the governance smoother – at that time.”
The government put forward a blueprint for the 2017 chief executive electoral reform proposal on Wednesday, in line with the rigid framework set last year by Beijing. It requires chief executive hopefuls to win majority support from a 1,200-strong nominating body, which will approve two to three candidates for whom Hongkongers can vote in a general election.
She said the government expected the Legislative Council to vote on the proposal in the second half of June.
Government officials said the threshold of 120 recommendations from members of the committee for the hopefuls to be eligible for consideration could allow aspirants with different political views to enter the race.
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen said this morning that the proposal would add democratic elements to the chief executive election.
He said if the reform plan was approved, the first round of the next poll would become “more competitive” as it could have up to 10 candidates in the initial contest.
“I believe the 10 candidates will show their policy blueprints and oratory to make them stand out as qualified candidates to go to the final stage,” he told Metro Radio.
Tam said the government would this year outline proposed changes to local election laws for the 2017 chief executive poll if the proposal passed in Legco this summer.
These changes would include increasing the upper limit of funds candidates are allowed to used in their campaigns, he said.
But the government proposal, which needs a two-thirds majority in Legco, has apparently failed to win the support from most of the pan-democratic lawmakers.
Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing said pan-democrats would definitely vote down the current reform plan. She said they would continue to fight for changes to the proposal from the Hong Kong and central governments in the coming months before it goes to a vote in Legco this summer.
“We need to step up efforts to change the situation and make Beijing willing to make changes,” Lau told DBC radio this morning. She said these would include efforts to explain to Hong Kong and Beijing officials what the pan-democrats see as the plan’s negative impact on Hong Kong.
Labour Party lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung, who spoke on the same programme, said the government should had no illusion that pan-democrats would come to support its proposal.
“The proposal is DOA, dead on arrival. It was dead before arriving in hospital,” he said. “Stop imagining some … pan-democrats will change their minds.”
Cheung said the city should focus in the coming months on forcing the government to restart the steps for political reform.
However, Lam questioned whether the next chief executive would be willing to introduce the controversial reform again if the current reform package is voted down.
“The society and the public opinion remain divided even though the government has already made tremendous effort” on promoting the reform, she said.
“If the government keeps on rolling out the reform and it [is] vetoed repeatedly in the future, it might not be in the best interest of the society as …the arguments would seriously hinder the governance and hamper harmony in society.”
