XN000022-1997-04-20 — Page 5

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We know more or less without all the meetings in Peking what will emerge from these discussions. I've said for months that the package of proposals will be similar to the sort of arrangements that we refused to accept in the negotiations in 1993. The Election Committee will be a body which officials have already selected. There will be a sharp reduction in the number who can vote in the functional constituencies. And most important there will be a multi-member single vote system in the geographical constituencies.

Why you may ask will they do that? Some people say that it's to introduce a bit more proportionality into our system. That might be a relevant argument if all our seats were directly elected. But only a third of these are directly elected. And look at the way in which the functional constituencies and the election committee ensure the representation - some would say over-representation - of particular interest groups.

The real reason for advocating a multi member single seat system is, as I said in 1993, to reduce the number of pro-democracy candidates who can get elected. Today 17 out of the 20 geographical constituencies are represented by pro-democracy candidates. For some that is the beginning and the end of the argument. I do hope that Hong Kong will be given the chances to speak out on this, and that it will do so with the same eloquent confidence it has shown in recent weeks.

Above and beyond these controversies, every week something happens in Hong Kong to remind us all what a great place this is. Next weekend we'll be opening the bridges to Lantau and all the roads and tunnels associated with them. That's a reminder of how much Hong Kong can do, at a spectacular pace, when we're left to get on with things ourselves. With so much good happening here, with so much good to show about ourselves, why embroil Hong Kong in these unnecessary arguments which so worry our friends and partners overseas, as well as worrying us?

In any event, how much difference will any of these mistaken changes really make? If you try to turn the clock back, you have to recognise that there is a price to pay, and that sooner or later, whatever you do, the hour hand and the minute hand will move relentlessly forward again. History hasn't ended in Hong Kong. There are men and women here who will write an even more successful next chapter in our story.

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