Decision of the National People's Congress therefore have important implications for the electoral arrangements to be put in place by the Hong Kong Government before 1997, given the
objective of continuity and a smooth transition of government
institutions.
8. The review of developments in representative government
took place in 1987. It generated considerable public
interest. The Hong Kong Government published a further Green
Paper. After extensive public debate, the resulting 1988
White Paper concluded that although there was wide support in the community for the principle of some directly-elected
members in the Legislative Council, opinion was sharply
divided as to the timing of their introduction. The Hong Kong
Government decided to postpone the introduction of
directly-elected members to the Council until 1991, in order
to allow the changes introduced in 1985 to settle down
further. The White Paper recommended an increase in the
number of functional constituency seats in 1988 and the
introduction of 10 directly-elected seats in 1991.
9.
The events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 had a profound
effect on Hong Kong opinion. This reaction in turn reinforced in the Chinese leadership a deep-seated mistrust of democracy in
Hong Kong. These events strengthened support in Hong Kong for a faster pace of democracy than that laid down in the 1988 White
Paper. In July 1989 the unofficial members of the Executive and
Legislative Councils (OMELCO) recommended that one third of the
Legislative Council should be directly-elected in 1991 (ie 20
seats) and not less than 50% in 1995 (ie 30 seats). This became
known as the OMELCO consensus. Senior members of OMELCO came to
London to press Her Majesty's Government to implement it.
10.
This posed in acute form the problem of how to reconcile the clear wishes of the community for a faster pace of
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