to be designed to ensure that seats go to parties winning
small percentages of the vote. In 1992 the Hong Kong
Legislative Council itself voted in favour of the single-seat,
single-vote system for Legislative Council elections and the
main political parties have recently reaffirmed their support
for it.
Election Committee
59.
Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government
consider that if the election of ten members of the
Legislative Council by an Election Committee is to be fair,
open and acceptable to the people of Hong Kong, two essential requirements will need to be satisfied:
60.
That members of the Election Committee should be elected
fairly and openly in Hong Kong.
The arrangements for the elections inside the Election Committee should themselves be open and fair.
The Governor's proposal in October 1992 was that the
Election Committee should draw all or most of its members from
the directly-elected District Boards; and that the Election
Committee should be able to vote for any qualified candidate,
not just for members of the Election Committee.
It
61. This proposal meets the two essential requirements.
would also provide a simple solution, since no new electoral machinery would be needed.
62.
The Chinese side's proposal (tabled in Round 7 of the
talks and later clarified, in response to repeated questions
from the British side, in Round 14) was that:
31
statement 26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
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