}
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direct elections, are not the best format to achieve this representativeness and at the same time create a strong, unified and responsible body. It is a great pity that the issue of direct elections has become so emotional, so much a measure of the degree of future autonomy and such a symbol of Hong Kong's ability to resist interference from China, that it has pushed all other alternatives into the background. I am not convinced, on the other hand, that a legislature elected by popular mandate will allow it to resist any conscious attempt of interference from outside Hong Kong. Direct elections provide no improved safeguards for autonomy but on the contrary lend themselves quite easily to "Patriotic Front" movements of the type we have seen coming to power in Eastern Europe, for example, after World War II.
It seems generally agreed that we shall continue to have an executive-led government in Hong Kong after 1997, and the Green Paper certainly does not suggest otherwise. Apart from localising the civil service, we must undoubtedly develop local political leadership, but this can also be done without a fundamental reform of our current political system and without a further fragmentation of political power through the creation of another class of directly-elected legislators with untested pedigrees, limited staying power, and a tendency towards radicalisation. The democratic movement in Hong Kong is disorganised and splintered, its leaders are not united.
In
a society as pragmatic as Hong Kong's, it is not at all certain that the democratic movements will produce the future leaders acceptable to a majority of the population however much they
may try.
The more so since the performance of the political activists todate has not always been perceived as particularly democratic or successful. They are seen as mavericks with a reluctance to accept majority decisions, they criticise political opponents as "forcing their views on the people" and are publicly doubting that even the introduction of direct elections will produce democracy. Most tellingly, they have accepted the compromise of partial direct elections although they must be aware of the