TNAG-2720-FCO40-3926-Hong-Kong-electoral-provisions-and-arrangements-including-Bo-1993 — Page 265

Extract of 1984 White Paper:

The Further Development of Representative Government

in Hong Kong

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CHAPTER II

the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

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The Electoral College

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Annex E

7. It was proposed in the Green Paper that:

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(a) the electoral college should be composed of all the elected and, to start with, all the appointed members of the Urban Council, the new Regional Council and the District Boards;

(b) it should be able to elect anyone who is a registered elector on the general electoral roll and who has been ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for a minimum of ten years, not necessarily from among its own members; and

(c) that these arrangements should be introduced progressively, with six

Unofficial members being elected in 1985 and 12 in 1988.

There has been much comment on these proposals. One suggestion was for a single list of candidates. Another was for arrangements to be made which would ensure a reasonably balanced geographical distribution of members elected by the college. This might be achieved by dividing the members of the college into groups of districts, each of which would elect one member, with the Urban Council and Regional Council forming separate constituencies to elect one member each.

9. The Government agrees that there should be a reasonably balanced geographical distribution. In consequence, in 1985, the District Board members of the electoral college will be grouped into ten geographical constituencies each based on one, two or three Districts and representing roughly 500 000 people each; and members of the Urban Council and Regional Council will form two special constituencies. Thus the electoral college will return 12 Unofficial members to the Legislative Council in the 1985 elections instead of the six members originally proposed in the Green Paper.

10. For the electoral college elections a list of all members of the Urban and Regional Councils and of the District Boards will be published as the electoral college roll. The qualifications to be a candidate for election to the Legislative Council by the electoral college will be the same as those in the Electoral Provisions Ordinance for election to the Urban Council and the District Boards, namely; a candidate must be a registered voter on the general electoral roll with a minimum of ten years residence in Hong Kong.

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Further details of these proposals are given at Appendix A.

The Functional Constituencies

12. The Green Paper stressed that full weight should be given to representa- tion of the economic and professional sectors of Hong Kong society which are

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Annex E