Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam has unveiled the proposed arrangements regarding the methods for selecting the Chief Executive and for forming the Legislative Council in 2012.
Five of the additional 10 seats for LegCo in 2012 will be returned by Geographical Constituencies and the other five by Functional Constituencies. The five new Functional Constituency seats will form a new District Council Functional Constituency in which candidates must be nominated by no less than 15 elected District Council members and a proportional representation list system will be adopted.
For the Chief Executive Election, the number of members in the Election Committee will be increased from 800 to 1,200 and there will be a total of 117 elected District Council members in the committee, enhancing its democratic elements.
Proposal details
Outlining the proposals at the Legislative Council Panel on Constitutional Affairs meeting today, Mr Lam said the they greatly enhance the democratic elements in Hong Kong's electoral system.
Five of the additional 10 seats for LegCo in 2012 will be returned by Geographical Constituencies and the other five by Functional Constituencies. The number of Geographical Constituencies will be retained at five in returning the 35 Geographical Constituency Members. The five new Functional Constituency seats will form a new District Council Functional Constituency.
Only elected District Council members can nominate and become candidates in the new District Council Functional Constituency. Candidates must be nominated by no less than 15 elected District Council members.
Candidates will be elected by approximately 3.2 million electors who currently do not have the right to vote in other Functional Constituencies on a one-person-one-vote basis. The proportional representation list system will be adopted in the new District Council Functional Constituency to ensure balanced participation by different political parties.
In respect of the new District Council Functional Constituency, the maximum amount of election expenses that can be received by a list of candidates will be $6 million. The financial assistance provided by the Government is the lower of either the amount obtained by multiplying the total number of valid votes cast for the list of candidates by $12 or 50% of their declared election expenses.
Election Committee expansion
For the Chief Executive Election, the Election Committee will be expanded in accordance with the principle of balanced participation. There will be more opportunities for members of different sectors to participate in the coming election, Mr Lam said.
The number of members in the Election Committee will rise from 800 to 1,200. The number of seats in the four sectors will each be increased by 100. According to the Government's proposal, no new subsector will be added in the first, second and third sector. The number of seats allocated to the existing 32 subsectors in these three sectors will be increased by proportion according to the existing distribution of seats.
Of the 100 new seats for the fourth sector of the Election Committee, 75 seats will be allocated to the District Council subsectors. The District Council subsectors will have 117 seats and will maintain the existing arrangement of grouping into two subsectors (one for urban area and the other for the New Territories) and retain the current "bloc vote system".
Only elected District Council members can register as voters, nominate candidates and be nominated as candidates in the District Council subsectors. There will be a total of 117 elected District Council members in the Election Committee. This helps enhance the democratic elements of the committee.
Gov't timetable
"We plan to introduce into LegCo the CE Election (Amendment) Bill and the LegCo (Amendment) Bill in a few weeks. We hope that LegCo could pass the bills as soon as possible next year to provide sufficient time for preparing the 2011 EC subsector elections, and the arrangements for the subsequent elections," Mr Lam added.
Details on the proposals will be available soon on the LegCo Panel on Constitutional Affairs webpage.
