TNAG-2010-FCO40-2862-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-General-Election-Com-1990 — Page 70

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(b)

4.

One or more constituencies formed from the members of the district, urban and regional councils. This would produce a number of members of the GEC who are representative of local government organs.

I have no immediate views on how one would create other constituencies for the GEC. A possibility would be to create larger groupings of the functional constituencies, rather on the lines of paragraph 3 of the draft decision of the NPC, but that does run into duplication problems. We must put the duplication issue to the Hong Kong Government and see if they have any bright ideas.

How are These Constituencies to Select Their Representatives on the GEC?

5. I think the only answer to this is by election by secret ballot.

Candidates for Election in the GEC

6.

It does not seem to me to be essential that candidates for election by the GEC should be GEC members or come from members of the GEC constituencies. What is necessary is that they should be nominated by a respectable proportion of the members of the GEC. One would assume that it should be a rule that no candidate for election to the legislature should stand in more than one constituency whether a directly elected constituency, a functional constituency, or for election by the GEC.

How is the GEC to Choose Members of the Legislature

7.

Again, a direct election by secret ballot would appear to be the only respectable solution.

Additional

8. There is the additional question of the numbers of the GEC. The proposal in the 1989 text of the Basic Law for an Election Committee to elect the first Chief Executive is for 400 members which rises to 800 members in subsequent elections. I think the answer to the question of how many members of a GEC for the election of members of the legislature is dependent in great measure on how one can construct the GEC in a way which is demonstrably different from the directly elected and functional constituencies. I suspect it is going to be difficult to produce

CONFIDENTIAL