professional sectors of substantial importance in Hong Kong. Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government consider that if the functional constituency system is to meet the requirements of fairness and openness, there are two lessons to be learnt from recent experience. First, corporate voting can lead to an individual having effective control over several votes in functional constituencies. Second, the very small electorates in some of the existing constituencies lead to a risk of corruption, of which there has been a recent example in Hong Kong. It is therefore necessary to provide for constituencies of a substantial size.
63. The Governor's proposals in October 1992 took account of these points. He proposed that for the 21 existing functional constituencies, the process of gradual development should be maintained by replacing all forms of corporate voting with individual voters. For the nine new functional constituencies, the Governor proposed that the simplest and fairest approach would be to define them so that they included the entire working population. On that basis, the Governor proposed nine constituencies based on the existing classification of industrial and commercial sectors.
64.
The Chinese side's proposals, put forward in round six of the negotiations, were that the composition and voting method of the existing 21 functional constituencies should remain precisely as they were in 1991, retaining the concept of corporate voting. They proposed that the nine new functional constituencies should be: the Hong Kong/Chinese Enterprises
Association: one extra seat for the existing Labour FC:
agriculture and fisheries: textiles and garments: Importers and Exporters Association: Kai Fong Welfare Associations: insurance: maritime: and sports.
These constituencies should
also be based on corporate voting.
statement26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
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