SECRET
XCX(93)45
and the Election Committee (EC). There will be nine new FCs with about 800 000 eligible electors; the 21 existing FCs will also undergo changes with the replacement of corporate voters by individual voters, and the expansion of certain professional FCs. As for the EC, assuming it is to be modelled along the line of a four-sector EC as envisaged in Annex I of the Basic Law, elections will have to be arranged to elect the EC members.
9
In order for the whole electoral process to be conducted in an orderly manner, we would need to advance the voter registration exercise to January-April 1995 (instead of April-July as in other years), so as to enable the election of EC members to take place in around June 1995, to be followed by the three types of Legislative Council elections in September. On this basis, the BEC will have to start work in the last quarter of 1994 to -
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
prepare for the registration of voters (including about 800 000 new FC voters);
liaise with the hundreds of organizations making up the new FCs to check their membership lists;
draw up subsidiary legislation (which will be subject to the Legislative Council's scrutiny) and administrative guidelines (which by law require public consultation) on registration and electoral procedures;
and
launch an extensive publicity campaign for the new arrangements.
10
The above in turn requires all necessary legislation to be in place by July 1994 before the Legislative Council goes into summer recess. If we fail to make this date, enactment of the legislation will be put back to November 1994 because of the intervening summer, plus the fact that October will practically all be taken up by the Governor's Policy Address. This will leave the BEC with totally inadequate time to complete its work before voter registration starts in January 1995.
11
As the legislation will be highly complex, we will need to allow three months for the law draftsman to prepare the draft, and at least four months for it to get passed the Legislative Council. This firmly points to a decision deadline of December 1993.
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ear?
Executive Council