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which the Governor will therefore be announcing proposals.
To achieve the first objective, the Governor is proposing a number of changes, including the separation of the membership of the Executive Council and LegCo, the creation of a Government Business Committee to help with the management of the Government's business in LegCo, and measures to improve LegCo's effectiveness and make the Hong Kong Government more clearly accountable to it.
The point that will attract most attention internationally is that Martin Lee will not be appointed to ExCo. Given Lee's international profile, this may attract some adverse comment. But it will be part of a broader readjustment of the roles of ExCo and LegCo involving the exclusion of all LegCo politicians from ExCo. This will remove the anomaly whereby some unelected LegCo leaders such as Allen Lee are at present on ExCo, while elected liberals such as Martin Lee are not. The Governor's view is that ExCo as at present constituted is ineffective and lacks credibility; and that the addition of the liberals to the present membership would lead to infighting and further reduce its effectiveness. judgement, with which I agree, is that his proposed change should be broadly accepted in Hong Kong. I therefore doubt that it will create too much fuss here. The Chinese will of
course be greatly relieved to see that Martin Lee and his
group have not been appointed to ExCo.
His
The 1995 elections raise more difficult political points. There are expectations in Westminster and internationally that for these last elections under British sovereignty we will aim for a significant increase in the number of directly-elected LegCo members. But if the LegCo elected in 1995 is to be permitted by the Chinese to continue through 1997 until the next Legco elections in 1999 (the so-called "through train"),
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