5prin.min
CODE 18-77
Reference
CONFIDENTIAL
MAB 01/10
15
Mr Ricketts
ELECTION COMMITTEE AND THE BASIC LAW
1. Zhou Nan in his meeting with the Governor again claimed that the 5 principles we agreed on the establishment of the Election Committee are in fact reflected in the Basic Law my analysis on this is as follows.
i) Principle A: a fresh electoral roll for each election. By making the Election Committee the same as for the Chief Executive and therefore having a five year term of office it is impossible for a new electoral roll to be drawn up for
4-yearly Legco elections. Therefore this principle is breached by the BL
ii) Principle B: membership of EC not to duplicate other constituencies. No reference to this in the BL.
iii) Principle C: EC to be as representative as possible. No reference in the BL
iv) Principal D: Nomination procedure to be simple, open and proscribed by an electoral Law. BL says only that it should be proscribed by an electoral Law. (Nomination procedure for the CE requires 100 nominations and effectively negates the secret ballot provision).
v) Principle E: that voting should be by secret ballot. No reference in the BL, some have suggested that the reference to Secret Ballot for the CE implies the same for the Legco elections.
2. In summary it would seem that the BL implements 1/3 of a principle, contravenes one principle and is silent on the other 3 1/3 principles.
3. I believe that there would be PR value in producing note on these lines for transmission to the Chinese in answer to Zhou Nan and then making this public.
4. I should be grateful for any comments from copy addressees on the analysis in para one above.
CONFIDENTIAL
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