Martin Lee offers 'creative' plan to resolve chief executive poll impasse
Public, political parties and nomination panel would each name two candidates for 2017 vote
Democratic Party elder Martin Lee Chu-ming has suggested a solution to the deadlock over the 2017 chief executive election that he says would respect the power of the nominating committee while leaving the door open for a pan-democrat candidate.
Lee suggests letting the public, political parties and the committee each put forward two possible candidates.
The six names, jointly considered as a single list, would be submitted to the committee for a vote. If the list got more than half of the members' support, the six would go on to the popular vote.
"It would be all or nothing," Lee told the South China Morning Post. "Members of the nominating committee would not be able to selectively screen out any of the six on the list. If they rejected the list, everything would have to start over again."
Lee said he believed the arrangement would be acceptable both to Beijing - which insists on the nominating committee's right to choose candidates - and the pan-democrats, who want to field at least one contender.
Lee's suggestion came as the biggest pro-establishment political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), announced its own proposal for the 2017 election.