TNAG-2731-FCO40-3937-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-1993 — Page 194

Mr Ricketts

CONFIDENTIAL

REC.

2. JAN 1043

fee

futmissie lo ih folled

M

я ре

p. 38

sempl?

FROM: K A M Saunders

Hong Kong Department

DATE: 21 January 1993

cc: Sir J Coles

Mr Hum

Miss Brooks,

Legal Advisers

Mr Wye, RAD

Mr Davies, FED

Fot

따

ALTERNATIVE MODELS FOR AN ELECTION COMMITTEE

36

You circulated with your minute of 18 January the Memorandum

on four options for the composition of the Election Committee

1.

for the 1995 LegCo, which ExCo discussed on 15 January. I have the following thoughts.

2.

A great deal of creative thinking on the mechanics of

setting up an EC has gone into this ExCo Memorandum, but I agree

with the thrust of the ExCo discussion (in HK telno 73) that the

essential problem at this stage is political not technical.

3. I do not think that amending the Governor's proposals now, before submitting them to LegCo, would achieve anything useful.

It would be seen as a sign of weakness by the Chinese and, by

the same token, would very likely lose the support of the

liberals in LegCo, on whom we depend to get through LegCo anything resembling the Governor's original proposals.

4.

The ExCo paper illustrates the difficulty of devising a new proposal which meets both the Governor's essential criteria and

the terms of the Basic Law. The provisions of the Basic Law are

elec.comm.PR.JRB

CONFIDENTIAL