MCLC: HK report on electoral reform

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: HK report on electoral reform
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere blog, NYT (7/14/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/hong-kong-to-deliver-report-
on-electoral-reform-to-beijing/

Hong Kong to Deliver Report on Electoral Reform to Beijing
By ALAN WONG

In December 2007, Donald Tsang, the chief executive of Hong Kong at the
time, told Beijing that a majority of the public hoped to elect the
region’s leader by “one person, one vote” in 2012, writing in a report
that that expectation “should be taken seriously and given consideration.”
A few weeks later, Beijing said “no”: The earliest possible year for such
a vote would be a decade from then, in 2017.

The next such report, and the first formal step required to change how
Hong Kong’s top official is selected, will be delivered to Beijing on
Tuesday by the current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying. In addition to
reflecting Hong Kong people’s views on electoral reform, the report may
seek approval from the Standing Committee of the National People’s
Congress, China’s top legislative body, for implementing universal
suffrage in 2017.

Despite the move toward increasing the number of people who will be able
to participate in the election of the chief executive — from just 1,200
members of an elite committee to about 3.51 million registered voters —
there is widespread concern that Beijing will restrict the nomination
process by screening out any candidates whose political views do not align
with those of the ruling Communist Party.

Last month, more than one-tenth of Hong Kong’s 7.2 million residents voted
in an informal referendum on plans to allow the general public to nominate
candidates as either an addition to or replacement of the current
nominating committee dominated by Beijing loyalists. This was also the top
demand of a march on July 1, when one of the largest gatherings in the
city’s history took over the streets of central Hong Kong.

Supporters of a public nomination worry that this approach may be ruled
out in the report on Tuesday, and if not, then by Beijing, when it
formally responds to the report by as early as August, in the same way
that the demand for universal suffrage in 2012 was denied in 2007.

While the Hong Kong government “will very likely push for universal
suffrage in 2017, it will probably use very ambiguous language in the
specifics, like nominating methods, and kick the can down the road,” said
Lester Shum, a leader of the activist group Federation of Students. “It’s
the central government that has the power to make decisions.”

Mr. Shum said that the student coalition might call for a student strike
in August if Beijing ruled out nomination by the broader public and by
political parties in the 2017 election.

Mr. Shum was among the 511 people arrested on the morning of July 2, after
activists staged an overnight sit-in on a street of the Central business
district to call for public nomination.

That action was also seen as a precursor to Occupy Central with Love and
Peace, a movement that has threatened to stage a sit-in in the same
business district if the government’s proposal for the 2017 electoral
reform does not meet what the group calls “international standards of
universal suffrage.”

Senior Hong Kong officials have said that public nomination does not
comply with the Basic Law, the region’s de facto constitution that took
effect when China resumed exercise of sovereignty over the city, a former
British colony, in 1997. The Basic Law outlines a “one country, two
systems” principle that allows for a range of civil liberties and rights
in the city that are absent in much of the rest of China.

Benny Tai, a co-founder of the Occupy Central movement, said he expected
Mr. Leung’s report to “just be doing the minimum — that is, saying that we
may have a need to change the election method and that’s it.” Explicitly
saying that public nomination is contrary to the Basic Law, Mr. Tai said,
runs the risk that it “may trigger an occupation already, and I don’t
think the government is prepared to do so at this stage.”

The Hong Kong Bar Association has said that public nomination is
“technically incompatible” with the Basic Law. However, the objective of
public nomination —  “to ensure maximum participation of the general
electorate in the nomination process”  — could be compatible.

It would be a “misuse and abuse of the concept of the rule of law,” the
group said in a statement on Friday, if the government merely used the
Basic Law as a reason to dismiss popular proposals without considering
whether their objectives could be accommodated within the Basic Law.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting.