as part of a Memorandum of Understanding on immediate issues,
to introduce legislation to that effect.
DISTRICT BOARD AND MUNICIPAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS (1994/95)
47.
The Governor proposed in October 1992 that all members of the District Boards and Municipal Councils should be directly-elected (except for ex-officio members in the New
Territories, who are elected representatives of villages).
48.
Since their inception the District Boards and Municipal
Councils have been moving away from a wholly appointed
membership towards an elected membership. The Governor's
proposal is fully consistent with the principle of open and
fair elections, and of the gradual development of Hong Kong's
political system.
49.
The Chinese proposal made in Round 4 of the talks was
that the nature, functions and method for forming the District
Organisations should remain unchanged. Appointed membership
should be retained. In Round 15 they proposed a small
reduction in the number of appointed members (from 31.7% to
27.2% in the case of the District Boards). Later in the same
Round they proposed that, as part of an interim understanding on the District Boards and Municipal Councils, the two sides
should record their differing views on the abolition of
appointed membership, and that it should be left to the Government of the Special Administrative Region after 30 June 1997 to determine on its own the number of appointed members in accordance with law. The British side built on this proposal in producing the fifth point in the draft Memorandum of
Understanding at Annex 4. This would have enabled the British side to introduce legislation to abolish appointed membership at the 1994-5 elections, without prejudice to a future decision by the Special Administrative Region authorities on whether to
statement26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
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