CONFIDENTIAL
IMMEDIATE
3.
The proposals which the Governor will be announcing on 7
October are designed to meet the needs of effective and
accountable government: to make the electoral system more
democratic and fair: and to maximise the chances of continuity
through 1997 by exploiting to the full the flexibility available
within the Basic Law.
4. They fall into two parts. First, there are steps to be taken
straightaway to make Hong Kong's representative institutions more
effective, and the Hong Kong Government more accountable to them.
The Governor intends to separate the membership of the Executive
and Legislative Councils so that no non-official members of LegCo would also serve on ExCo. This will end the arrangement whereby representatives of some political groups in ExCo served on LegCo
while others did not, and enable LegCo politicians to develop
their parties and programmes free from the constraints of ExCo
membership. The Governor will also be taking other steps to
improve accountability: he will step down as President of LegCo
and make himself available regularly to answer questions there. A new Government/LegCo Business Committee will be established to
enable the administration to discuss the handling of its
Legislative and financial programmes with representatives of
LegCo.
5.
Second, there are the changes that will be needed for the
1995 LegCo elections. I find widespread support in Hong Kong
for a greater measure of democracy but at the same time a strong hope that what is put in place in 1995 can survive beyond 1997. That means making changes compatible as far as
possible with the Basic Law.
The simplest means of enhancing democracy would be for the Chinese side to agree a change in the Basic Law to increase the number of directly elected seats beyond the 20 it now envisages.
6.
But