TNAG-1727-FCO40-2440-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 187

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1 a number of steps in the process between now and the

introduction of direct elections in that year. The

introduction of direct election to the Legislative

Council, as I perceive it, can be carried out in two

stages. I raised this point when this Council

debated the Green Paper last July and please allow

me to repeat them here.

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In the first stage, nomination

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of candidates will have to be recommended by Members of the District Boards to ensure that the quality

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of candidates has reached a certain standard.

will put in place the mechanism to make sure the

candidates will be capable of serving the community

while allowing the public to vote directly for the candidates they support. This stage can be considered as a warming-up period, so that both candidates and the voters will have some experience in direct elections.

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At the second stage, there can

be direct nominations from the Districts to ensure

that anyone who intends to stand for election will

have a fair chance of doing so. Furthermore, I believe the existing Electoral College system should be abolished eventually.. The replacement of ten is 26

26 Electoral College seats by geographically based

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direct election in 1991 is only the first step.

The following steps should be the abolishing of the

two seats allocated to the Urban and Regional Councils

and be replaced by geographically based direct elections.

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I also see a need in the future

for the existing three-tier system to be modified and merged into a two-tier one, at central and pistrict 35 level, with clearly defined roles. Hong Kong is too

small a place to allow too complicated a system to

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