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X.
16
The Urban Council and Regional Council attach importance to having their two elected representatives on the Legislative Council, providing a useful and necessary administrative and political link. District Board
Board members the also consider their indirect representation on Legislative Council, via the Electoral College, of similar importance.
17
Appointed Members: This element in the Council continues to enjoy substantial public support. It is
is not expected that anyone would advocate abolition of seats allocated to appointed members at this stage, but some reduction may be suggested. They are accepted as a very useful method of balancing the representation of community interests in the Council and including significant and competant people who would not normally stand for election.
18
Directly Elected Members: It seems likely that the introduction of about eight to ten directly elected members would meet the expectations of those in Hong Kong in favour of direct elections. To add ten directly elected members to the present Council, as well as say four more functional constituency members and four Official Members, would produce a Council of seventy-four. It would produce a balance more strongly in favour of directly and indirectly elected members from district and regional constituencies (compared with functional, appointed and official members). The balance would be tipped even more strongly in favour of elected members if the number of appointed members were to be reduced.
19
Some criticism has been voiced that the Electoral
College is too narrowly based for producing members of Legislative Council. It has been suggested that if directly elected members are introduced, District Board Electoral College members should make way for them. The main argument for the District Board-Electoral College members was to produce a reasonable balanced geographical distribution of members. The media and public opinion have noted that the March 1986 Urban Council and Regional Council elections produced mainly social workers and educationalists. A basic dimension of this problem is arithmetical: short of considerable alteration of the District Board Electoral College boundaries, the choice is to have the present ten seats, or none at all; and the latter choice would mean abolishing a type of representation only introduced in 1985 which may seem dramatic and unsettling.
20
There are
are several possible variations. Some appear
in the table below :
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