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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL - 14 July 1988
Special Administrative Region. But let us be realistic about it: if Hong Kong should suffer severe economic depression and civil disorder from which it cannot extricate itself, China will have no alternative but to intervene- democracy or not.
Eighty-one members of the Basic Law Consultative Committee, coming from the commercial, industrial, financial and professional sectors of our community, came up with a model of political structure which is shown as alternative I of Annexes I and II.
This business and professional community believed that in order to provide a sound foundation for the continuation of Hong Kong's stability and prosperity, andy change in our political structure should be a gradual one, and should retain those good aspects of the existing political systems taking objective account of Hong Kong's realistic requirements. In this their viewpoint is amazingly similar to Mr. SZETO Wah's point in his speech. I translate it as 'a change must be a good change'-(F2F24407).
The 'grand electoral college' concept is a body of 600 representatives from various walks of life in Hong Kong, including members of the legislature, the representatives of municipal councils, district boards, statutory bodies and permanent non-statutory bodies, social and charitable organisations, pro- fessionals and labour, the industrial community, the commercial community, the financial community, the religious and educational communities and the Civil Service.
Members of the grand electoral college are elected from their own organis- ations by a democratic process, and they in turn elect to the legislature 25 per cent of its members. Mr. Martin LEE criticised that the grand electoral college is controlled by a majority of members from the business and industrial sectors. He claimed that this was suggested in a booklet published by the group of 81. The booklet clearly stated that 80 seats be allocated to the industrial sector, 50 seats to the commercial sector and 50 to the financial, making it a total of 180 out of 600. In my simple arithmetic this is far from being a majority. Sir, I also wonder how can a person as astute a politician as Mr. Martin LEE think that a group of 600 from all walks of life can be manipulated. Further Mr. LEE must have read from the wrong booklet as the Group of 81 did not want Official Members to be elected to the Legislative Council. They only say that Officials should attend, present bills and answer questions, but will not vote. I am delighted indeed that Mr. Lee has endorsed this idea.
Those who had criticised the model put forward by the business and professional community charged that it was designed to protect the vested interests of the rich. I must hasten to add that this is not the word used by Mr. Martin LEE today. He used the words 'business and industrial sectors'. The truth is that the grand electoral college is composed of representatives from all walks of life, all duly elected democratically. The critics themselves draw a line separating our community into the ‘rich' and the 'poor', the concept of which is