HONG KONG BACKGROUND BRIEF: DECEMBER 1993
DEVELOPMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN HONG KONG
The Governor's proposals
1.
The Governor set out his proposals for political development
in the years up to 1997 in his inaugural address to the Hong
Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) last October. They were the
result of wide-ranging discussions within the community, and
responded to the recent rapid growth of political awareness in Hong Kong. They have the British Government's full support. Mr Patten's aim is to ensure that the 1995 LegCo elections are broadly based, open and fair, and acceptable to Hong Kong
people. People in Hong Kong now want to see a faster pace of democratic development; at the same time they want to see continuity, so that arrangements made before 1997 will survive
beyond that. For this it is necessary, as far as possible, that any changes are compatible with the Chinese Basic Law, the constitutional blueprint for Hong Kong after 1997.
2.
The Basic Law sets out the composition of the first post-1997 legislature as follows: 20 seats to be directly
elected; 30 to be elected from functional constiuencies; and
10 to be elected by an election committee. This means that for
the legislature elected in 1995 to serve its full term through
1997 to 1999, (the so-called through-train) it can at present
have no more than 20 directly-elected seats. But, quite properly, the Basic Law does not specify the method whereby these different categories of legislative councillors should be elected in 1995. Those elections are Britain's responsibility.
3. The simplest way to extend democracy in Hong Kong would be to increase the number of directly-elected seats in LegCo.
The
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