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Governor's statement on the Times report

In response to a report in the Times of London today (Friday) headlined "Patten offers early poll to Peking", a spokesman for the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, commented:

"The Governor made no such offer. He simply responded during an interview with a journalist from the Times to a hypothetical question on the possibility of further élections under certain circumstances in Hong Kong prior to 1997.

"The Governor's and the Government's position has always been that the 1994/95 electoral arrangements approved by the Legislative Council last summer are the best for Hong Kong. They are fully compatible with the Basic Law, and the best thing for China to do would be to recognise that, and to leave those arrangements unchanged in 1997.

"That is still our position.

"It is certainly wrong to say that we have made any offer to China on this matter. It is equally wrong to read such a meaning into the Governor's response to a hypothetical question.

"Nor have we received any such offer from the Chinese side. And as the Governor said in the interview, we have seen no evidence of any such offer being in prospect."

Following is the excerpt from an interview with the Governor by Jonathan Mirsky of the Times on Thursday (June 29):

Mirsky: Suppose the Chinese suggested to you an election of any sort to be held in Hong Kong before 1997 for a LegCo to be established after 1997; and they said except for criminals anybody can stand, so that you might say this means that Szeto and Martin and everybody, if they ran in this 1996 or early 97 election under perhaps not 'one- person, one-vote' but some kind of functional constituency, something that did not look rigged and so forth; and the alternative to that was the Chinese appointment of a legislature next year, which would then be the legislature after 1997, can you imagine any circumstances in which you might say: yeah we might be able to have an election under some circumstances for that post-1997 thing?

Governor: Obviously the issue for us, the issue of principle, isn't a particular set of arrangements to elect the institution, but whether any arrangements that are put in place are fair and open.

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