TNAG-2449-FCO40-3565-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1992 — Page 208

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democratic election.

One approach would be to put the onus on the Chinese to tell us how they propose this should be achieved in practice. Another problem is that, to ride the through train, members of LegCo in 1997 will have to "uphold the Basic Law" and pledge alliegance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Chinese are expected to use this to keep Martin Lee and others they

dislike out of the post- 1997 LegCo.

(iii)

13.

Electoral Arrangements

The Chinese are pressing for all the main arrangements for the 1995 elections to be agreed with them. The Hong Kong Government are already holding a review of the main issues, and LegCo are in parallel conducting hearings in a Select Committee. A number of changes which the Hong Kong Government believe are necessary for the 1995 elections will be controversial with the Chinese, in particular lowering the voting age to 18 (China opposes this, although 18 is the voting age in China) and establishing an Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission (albeit appointed by the

Governor).

(iv)

14.

Functional Constituencies

The Basic Law prescribes 30 functional seats in 1997: if the 1995 LegCo is to converge with the Basic Law, it will therefore be necessary to increase the number of functional seats by 9. The Hong Kong Government's electoral review will be considering whether to create new functional constituencies, or whether to increase the number of 2-member constituencies (see attached list). There is also the option of expanding the franchises for the functional

constituencies to introduce an extra measure of democracy without running into problems of compatibility with the

Basic Law.

BODAGD/5

CONFIDENTIAL