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Links with constituencies
7.
only
A requirement
that a candidate should be a
registered voter and have a specified number of nominators
would leave any candidate who believed he had a wide
following free to choose in which constituency he would
stand. A requirement that the candidate should be resident
in a constituency, and/or show through the nomination
substantial support in that
link him more closely with the
process that
constituency,
he
has
would
constituency.
Nomination of candidates
8.
Large amounts of candidates
of candidates can be confusing to the
electorate, and lead to candidates with only minority
support winning elections because the total vote is
fragmented among too large a group of candidates.
In many
electoral systems there is in practice a pre- selection of
candidates through party machinery which effectively limits
the number of serious candidates to three or four. Hong
Kong does not have a party system which could be used for
this purpose. Other methods of limiting the number of
candidates and/or ensuring that they have close connections with their constituencies have been suggested eg by giving
a role to District Boards or other bodies.
Possible methods
9.
They
A variety of possible methods of conducting direct
elections have been put forward in Hong Kong.
include:
(a) A simple system based the existing system used at District Board and Urban/Regional Council level
under which the only limitations placed on candidates are that they should obtain the support of 10 nominators and put down a fixed deposit. It
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