HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL - 14 July 1988
1895
of the community. It does not explain, however, which organisations are entitled to be represented in the grand electoral college. Nor does it say who is to decide which organisations will be included. All that is said is that different groups or organisations in the grand electoral college will select their representatives by a democratic process in accordance with their own internal procedures, which are not specified. Such a vague proposal must make people wonder whether its protagonists are serious about their proposal.
From the booklet published by the group of 81, one can see that the grand electoral college will consist of mainly people from the business and industrial sectors; and even the most conservative estimate suggests that at least the majority of its members will come from these sectors. Therefore, the person chosen by the grand electoral college to be the Chief Executive will certainly look after the interests of these business and industrial sectors, and yet he is not accountable to all the other people of the HKSAR. If such a Chief Executive wishes to seek another term, he will make sure that he has the continued support of the members from these sectors by making promises to them which may not be in the best interests of the HKSAR as a whole.
I therefore feel that such a system will bring about an undesirable coalition of economic and political interests and mutual trade-offs among a small group of people, thus corrupting our society. Moreover, if any one group among the business and industrial sectors were to dominate over the others, then the latter would be the first to bear the brunt, for,the former may abuse their power to advance their own financial gains at the expense of others, particularly those in the same trade. We know from experience that when economic and political interests merge together, monopoly and special privileges often develop, thus upsetting our much treasured free and open market economy.
As to the legislature, it is proposed by the Group of 81 that 25 per cent of it shall be 'elected' by the grand electoral college. But this is really an appointment system, for the result can be very easily manipulated. The underlying object in employing such a method is to ensure that there will be a group of members in the legislature who will always say 'yes' to any government proposal or policy. And I have been told that another object is to enable principal officials to be 'elected' into the legislature, so as to preserve the present system of having official members in the Legislative Council. This clearly demonstrates that the grand electoral college is proposed in order to achieve a pre-determined result.
But there is no reason to provide for such an elaborate and unsatisfactory system of election just to cater for these principal officials. Surely there are better alternatives. The first is to have a what is commonly called the ministerial system whereby the principal officials will be nominated from the elected members of the legislature who will then be appointed by the CPG as provided in the Joint Declaration. The second alternative is to provide in the Basic Law that principal officials will be allowed to take part in all meetings of the Legislative Council, but without a vote. So they will answer questions, and