· 3 -
Governor: I'm going to discuss these issues with Legislative Council members. I think that's the right way of doing it.
Question: Governor, investigate why some people are registered...but not even allow those people to vote. Is that something....
Governor: There are procedures laid down if people have complaints involving both the Boundary and Election Commission and subsequently matters can be taken to court as well. It's all established. It's all there on the statute book and if
any candidate has complaints, I'm sure that he will be well advised by his or her lawyers as to how to take their complaints forward.
Question: Do you agree that this is....
Governor: Of course not. Everybody knows that the elections were carried out extremely fairly. There's a bit of united front propaganda directed at this particular area. I guess it has something to do with the result of the elections, not to do with the way the elections were carried out. We all know that the Boundary and Election Commission and the REO did a first class job, as good as could have been done in any community in the world.
Question: But it ends up with some miscounting of votes.
Governor: It ended up with one or two discrepancies. One of them was dealt with I think very clearly by the Boundary and Election Commission yesterday which I think resulted in the winning candidate having a larger majority.
Question: There are some polls suggesting that young people of Hong Kong are very concerned about post 1997. What messages do you have for young people?
Governor: I think that they should be confident that Hong Kong will survive as a prosperous, open, decent society provided that they, as well as older people in Hong Kong commit themselves enthusiastically to the values which have made Hong Kong so successful in the past. I think it's increasingly clear to all of us that people in Hong Kong value their freedom, value their way of life and a lot of them seem to be saying last weekend that they want that way of life to continue. I am sure it will continue provided people are committed to it continue. I said when I first spoke to Hong Kong students in Canada that I thought it would be a mark of our success and of the success of the SAR Government after 1997 if those young people came back to Hong Kong to make their lives and to contribute to the community rather than thinking they should do so outside Hong Kong. I think that's a challenge for all of us and one which I hope we can rise to.
End/Wednesday, September 20, 1995