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Governor: I'm old enough in the arts of politics to know that that is an interesting question but one which it would be extremely foolish for me to reply to. What I would like to see, and what anybody would like to see, is as many people as possible voting. I'm pleased that so many more have voted than happened last time. After all, there were a lot of very dire predictions that very few would vote a couple of years ago, but obviously in the next four hours I hope that the figures will increase even more rapidly and we'll get as high a turnout and as high an absolute number of people voting as possible. I think one of the things that's interesting, though you're not, I admit, strictly comparing like with like, is to see the huge number of people who have voted so far in the functional constituencies. If you compare the number voting in the functional constituencies with the number who voted last time, I think you get some idea of how much more broadly based this Legislative Council is going to be than its predecessor.
Question: Inaudible
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Governor: I'd say to them that the best way of ensuring that Hong Kong gets the steady process of democratisation which it was promised is to take advantage today of the opportunity of voting. We're not talking about speeding up that process of democratisation. What we're talking about is ensuring that each step along the road is a genuine step, is a genuine and open election, rather than an election which I think I recall the remark - gives you the result you wanted before the election took place. That's not an election and I hope that Xinhua will recognise that what people in Hong Kong want is free and fair elections and they want everyone, the present sovereign and the future sovereign power, to live up to the promises that were made to them. One more question.
60 Reporter: In the functional constituencies, those huge gaps in the turnout rates per cent in the labour sector and maybe 10 per cent for doctors, why do you think that is?
Governor: I don't know, it may have something to do with the nature of he functional constituency and it may have something to do with how well-known the candidates are in the functional constituencies. But I think the latest figure I saw was that well over 200,000 people had so far voted in the functional constituencies. In the last 1991 Legislative Council elections, I think I'm right in saying the total vote in all the contested functional constituency elections was just over 20,000, so we're seeing a lot of people turning out and there are obviously some ding-dong battles going on in those functional constituencies. I think that all those of you who are on the late shift tonight and watching the count and watching the results come in will have some pretty exciting contests to watch. Thanks very much indeed.