TNAG-2735-FCO40-3943-Hong-Kong-role-of-the-Legislative-Council-(LEGCO)-1993 — Page 168

CONFIDENTIAL

other 20 functional constituencies.

Of these, 15 are currently

held by conservatives (members of the Liberal Party or conservative independents) and five are held by liberals or moderates. of the 15, only one or two can be guaranteed to return a definitely pro-China member, as opposed to a conservative, but a determined United Front campaign could cut a swathe through these seats. of the five seats currently held by liberals or moderates, two or three may well be vulnerable to vigorous campaigning from conservative elements. We have already seen functional constituencies change hands in this manner: in 1991 the member for the teaching constituency resigned to fight a directly-elected seat for the United Democrats, and was replaced with a conservative. Howard Young (representing the tourism constituency) may be a particular target as the Chinese regard him as a proxy vote for Swires.

If

4. This result underlines that we will face a long and bloody battle to persuade the Chinese to sign up to any significant expansion of the franchise for the nine new functional constituencies required in 1995. The narrower the franchise, the easier the Chinese will find it to influence the result. the franchise is to be extended, we can be sure that the Chinese will argue for more functional constituencies for trade unions, rural organisations and so on where their influence has traditionally been the strongest.

5.

Functional constituencies will make up exactly half of the 1995 LegCo: at present only two or three functional constituencies can be expected to return moderate/liberal members (those constituencies representing the liberal professions: legal, medical and health care). The prize for which the Chinese will be playing in any negotiations on the composition of the new functional constituencies will thus be

CONFIDENTIA