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The Green Paper
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The Green Paper published on 27 May 1987 covered a range of issues, including the relationship between the District Boards and the two Municipal Councils (the Urban and Regional Councils); whether to increase the number of seats in the Legislative Council elected by functional constituencies; the voting age; systems of election; and the position of the Governor as President of the Legislative Council. At Chinese request it also floated the idea of a Grand Electoral College as a future method of choosing some members of the Legislature.
The public response
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However, the single issue which attracted most attention, often to the exclusion of all other matters, was the question of whether directly elected members should be introduced to the Legislative Council and, if so, when and how many. The Green Paper listed neutrally a series of options ranging from no direct elections ever to some being introduced in 1988. The Government set up an independent Survey Office to collect and report on public response. We said publicly on a number of occasions that all the options were genuine ones (i.e. regardless of known Chinese opposition to any move in 1988) and we undertook that the Government itself would not advocate any particular outcome.
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The following nine months were a time of intense debate and, for Hong Kong, an unusual amount of political mud-slinging. The Chinese Government, operating clandestinely through the Communist Party and more openly through a wide range of supporters, mobilised its followers to oppose direct elections in 1988. Radicals, under the charismatic leadership of Mr Martin Lee QC, mobilised their supporters especially the young and the educated middle class to press for rapid change starting in 1988. Much of the population probably would have preferred to stay out of the fray. But there can have been few who did not get caught up in one of the almost constant public opinion polls or who were not pressed to sign one of the signature campaigns which were a feature of radical tactics.
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One consequence of the past nine months is that it is no longer possible to say, as it was in the past, that the people of Hong Kong as a whole are not interested in politics. Over 130,000 submissions were sent in to the Survey Office, many on pre-printed forms prepared by both camps but particularly the pro-China groups. By contrast, the far-reaching ideas in the 1984 Green Paper only attracted 364 responses. Over 200,000 people put their names to signature campaigns, almost
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