TNAG-2711-FCO40-3917-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-and-Par-1993 — Page 102

get on with legislation on the more urgent issues, and gain a little more time to resolve the remainder.

I explained to the Chinese Foreign Minister in New York on 1 October that this aim would not be achieved by an interim package limited only to the District Board and Municipal Council elections. To deal with all the more urgent issues, an interim package needs to include the voting age and the voting method for all three sets of elections, including the Legislative Council, and the abolition of appointed membership in the District Boards and Municipal Councils.

The Chinese side evidently had no difficulty of principle with an interim package covering some LegCo issues. They accepted our proposal that the voting age should be lowered to 18 for

all elections. They also seem to have had no difficulty of principle with our proposal that the voting method should be single seat single vote. They accepted that this should apply to the District Board and Municipal Council elections. But they refused to accept as part of an interim package that it should apply to the Legislative Council.

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We and the Governor consider that there are compelling reasons for including this proposal in the interim package:

in practical terms it would otherwise be necessary to legislate twice on the voting system, using up legislative time which will be in short supply next

year;

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in political terms the single seat single vote system enjoys widespread support in the Legislative

Council. If we had accepted the Chinese position and introduced legislation to apply this voting method to the District Boards and Municipal Councils

oralstatement25.11/BRIEFS/NJH