TNAG-1442-FCO40-1926-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 44

A

LB2AER

SECRET

THE COMPOSITION OF THE LEGISLATURE

DIRECT ELECTIONS

1.

It

The question of direct elections has been much debated in Hong Kong both in the context of the Basic Law and of

the 1987 review.

This note does not consider the

desirability or otherwise of introducing direct elections

or the stage at which they might be introduced.

considers only some of the related issues which might

arise, and methods of resolving them which are being

discussed in various sections of the community at the

present time.

Electoral machinery

2.

Hong Kong already has a a well established register of qualified electors, and electoral procedures for direct

election, which have been used successfully at both

District Board and Urban/Regional Council level. The same

register, and procedures (covering polling stations,

counting, nomination forms, voting papers etc) could be

used for similar elections to the legislature.

3.

vote

The same constituencies are used as a basis for

elections at both District Board and Urban Council/Regional

Council level.

These could be combined in various

create constituencies for direct

The number of constituencies-

configurations to

elections to the legislature.

required would depend on the number of seats in the

legislature to be filled, and on the maximum size of the electorate acceptable for each constituency. For example

in Hong Kong 2.4 million people are eligible to be

registered as voters. Ten seats would therefore give an

(At the

average of 240,000 potential voters in each. present time about 1.5 million are actually registered.)

SECRET