District Board and Urban Council elections.
With such poor
past voter's interest and without seeing any signs of a community-wide effort to develop our citizens' awareness of their civic responsibilities, how can the business circle be blamed for being skeptical of the degree of effectiveness direct elections can contribute towards our stability and prosperity. Hence before direct election can be introduced to Hong Kong, it is felt that the people of Hong Kong, inclusive of the business and professional community, must be educated to the merits of the system as well as to the degree of voter's responsibilities. Furthermore, the transformation phase must be cautious and gradual. Secondly, in the context of Hong Kong's political reality to-day, too quick a move towards direct election to the legislature would probably provide very much more opportunities to latent political groups who may choose to engineer and conduct adversarial political manoeuvres which in the final analysis will more likely bring turmoil rather than stability to our community. Thirdly, public image of the vocal groups advocating direct elections has been linked to strong advocate of "Free Lunch" type of social policies. This may be unfair perhaps but they feel that if such vocal advocates were to be in a position of strong influence, then it will be certain that Government will be pressurized to adopt more free lunch social policies which will have a damaging effect on the further development of our economy. Sir, I might
add that I have also held discussions with vocal advocates of direct elections, my initial assessment is that they do have some valid points and that some of the fears of our business circles may be incorrectly based. I am therefore hopeful that if deeper understandings can be developed between our vocal advocates of direct election and our business community, a great many of their differences can be ironed out.
For any proposed structural changes to our system of Government to work effectively, it is imperative that a close understanding amongst different sectors of our community be fostered and developed. Unfortunately, such development needs time to
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