Pro-business voting can be changed in theory, Basic Law expert Elsie Leung Oi-sie says
But expert Elsie Leung doubts lawmakers will agree on changes to nominating committee poll
Corporate votes in the election for members of a nominating committee for the 2017 chief executive poll can in theory be converted to individual votes, a Basic Law expert says.
Elsie Leung Oi-sie, vice-chairwoman of the national legislature's Basic Law Committee, spoke amid concerns that nominators picked via corporate voting would favour businesses.
A Lingnan University survey conducted last week indicated that abolishing corporate votes in selecting the nominators and introducing a "blank vote" mechanism in the 2017 election could significantly boost public support of the government's proposed reform of the election.
Current rules grant businesses and individuals about 16,000 and 210,000 votes, respectively, in choosing the 1,200 nominators who will narrow down candidates for the chief executive poll to two or three people.
Yesterday, Leung ruled out the possibility of allowing voters to cast blank votes if they did not support any of those candidates.
But "if there is a consensus among lawmakers to change the corporate votes to individual votes, such an amendment is theoretically feasible", she said.
"In reality, however, there is no such consensus, so how can we amend it?"
Some 50.7 per cent of 1,022 respondents interviewed between April 27 and May 2 wanted the Legislative Council to approve the government's reform package when it was put to a vote late next month.
The survey, commissioned by the 15-strong Concern Group for Public Opinion on Constitutional Development, also found 41.7 per cent preferred the lawmakers to veto it.
But when opponents of the reform were asked in what circumstances they would change their minds, about half wanted to be able to cast blank votes. If that was possible, total support of the package would go up to 70.6 per cent, the pollsters found.
Fifty-six per cent said they would agree to the package if the government proposed abolishing the corporate votes - boosting the total support rate to 74.1 per cent. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
"The poll showed a higher proportion of people would say 'yes' to the reform if some compromises were made," former Democratic Party lawmaker Fred Li Wah-ming said.
