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in February. The main proposals should be unchanged, to sustain liberal support. The Governor proposes to make one fairly modest change: allowing District Boards and Municipal Councils to co-opt Local worthies as non-voting advisers. This would demonstrate that we were listening to reasonable criticism. The Governor has also considered the idea of adopting a proposal put forward in Hong Kong that voters should be able to vote either in a geographical or functional constituency but not (as at present) in both. But this would be opposed by at least some of the Liberals. The Governor concludes that it would be better for this change to be put forward during Leg Co discussion.
10. The Governor should also continue to welcome alternative proposals from LegCo members, and to make clear that he and we will accept LegCo's final decisions. One way of demonstrating this would be for the Governor to put to LegCo a compendium of alternative proposals put forward by others, separately from his own draft legislation. Several Leg Co members are already working on proposals which might be capable of occupying the middle ground. Such proposals are likely to concentrate on smaller Functional Constituencies (if the one man, one vote principle were adopted, the size of the franchise would become less
critical) and a composition for the Election Committee closer
to that set out in the Basic Law for the 1999 elections.
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