an 5 per cent - will deter parties and candidates. We recommend at the alternative used in most European countries, including the ew democracies of Eastern Europe, of a substantial number of ignatures on a nomination paper be considered. Given the size of onstituencies 200 signatures would not be an unreasonable igure.
0.16
We have doubts about the benefits of public funds going to parties for election purposes although there is a strong case for upport for the educational aspects of party activity in the onger term. This could either be administered from a single Jational fund to which a party would apply for a grant for a onference or to publish a report, as in Sweden, or there could e a charitable foundation established with public funds for each arty represented in the legislature, as in Germany.
10.17
lowever, we recommend that public resources be provided in kind n three ways:
the provision of appropriate public buildings for bona fide election meetings [see para 10.12 above];
1 the free circulation of one election communication personally to
each elector for each candidate be continued, perhaps with addressed labels being made available from the Registration Officer's computer;
1 assistance from the public broadcasting body, Radio Television
Hong Kong, in the production of election broadcasts for free transmission on the various radio and television channels on a formula based on the numbers of candidates nominated by each party.
10.18
Access to the media was also raised with us. We were told that at the moment this is left to self-regulation by the media and that there are currently no problems. Our view is that, under the pressures of the forthcoming direct LegCo elections, self-regulation is unlikely to survive unscathed. Television in particular is a very pervasive and influential medium and it is very difficult to strike a balance between restricting the freedom for parties to buy advertising, within their allowable national expenditure, and the need to give equal opportunities to all candidates. In the UK there is a trade-off in that commercial television is not permitted to carry political advertising but, in return on three of the four channels and on BBC radio, there are party political broadcasts, free to the parties, right through the year. The length and number are determined by the parliamentary representation and, to some extent, votes polled at the previous election. Election broadcasts are similarly programmed on an agreed basis.
10.19
It is unlikely that any limit fixed for national expenditure would be sufficient to allow for the substantial sums required to buy advertising time, and this might well be the easy way of resolving this issue. In any case, on balance, for the sake of fairness, we prefer the UK system and would recommend its adoption in Hong Kong for the direct LegCo election campaign. We further recommend that guidelines also be laid down for the broad allocation of news time between parties at election time, in order to avoid allegations of bias on the part of commercial owners or programme editors. Given that only eighteen directly elected seats are available in the September 1991 election we hope that it will be possible to ensure that each candidate, including independents, has some opportunity to prescot his or her views via television and radio.
11. Education
11.1
We refer above, in paragraphs 8.2 to 8.6, to the media's key role in the process of electoral registration. We believe that this involvement should be regarded as only the first stage in a vital educational and informational programme. To one extent or another all countries use the media to brief and to educate the public on constitutional matters and, given the importance of this first direct election, we recommend that a series of public information programmes be prepared urgently by Radio Television Hong Kong, whose terms of reference clearly encompass.such a responsibility.
11.2
We hope that all the media, including local newspapers, will acknowledge a civic responsibility at this time and, in their own style, encourage the widest possible participation in the election. We hope that by familiarising the public with the whole process, from registration, through casting one's ballot, to the counting of the votes, in a practical way it will be possible to dispel any fears of the unknown and thus increase the turnout at the election.
12. Monitoring
12.1
In recent years there has been a considerable increase in the number of invitations to independent organisations to monitor elections, particular in countries where national elections are being held for the first time. These invitations are not issued because the administration has doubts about its capacity to run the elections fairly and competently but rather because it wishes to demonstrate how effectively it does run them. In regard to Hong Kong, having met a number of administrators, we have no reservations about their abilities in this regard but, in the context of the first LegCo election, we believe that there are strong arguments for inviting an independent monitoring team to be in Hong Kong for the latter part of the September campaign up to the declaration of results.
12.2
The arguments are similar to those for an independent Election Commissioner (para 6.6). An early decision to invite an independent monitoring team would immediately remove a potential source of criticism from those who have a deep-seated suspicion of the colonial administration. It also establishes a valuable precedent for future elections and would thus also defuse in advance criticism from those who might have the opposite suspicion after 1997.
12.3
We have seen a recent suggestion from Mr Jean-Marc Hamel, a former Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, that it could increase interest in the election if the results were available very soon after the close of the poll. For speed he advocates counting the votes in each polling station and then relaying the figures to a central point, citing a further advantage of "letting the different candidates know more specifically where their support is." [South China Morning Post, 29 March 1991] It is, bowever, worth bearing in mind that the UK practice of mixing the votes for the whole constituency before dividing them was introduced to protect voters from any illegitimate pressure that might be brought to bear if counting in very small units could possibly tend to identify bow individual electors had voted. If, in the circumstances of Hong Kong, any sort of witch hunt of voters is feared, it might well be better to count votes on a constituency basis.
ERS Delegaton to Hong Kong Report 10