TNAG-2736-FCO40-3944-Hong-Kong-role-of-the-Legislative-Council-(LEGCO)-1994 — Page 64

VERMENT HOUSE HONG KONG.

TUE 30 WOUL93 12014

PG.05

SECRET

3

Despite our best efforts, that has not proved possible.

Unfortunately, the only issue on which the Chinese side were

prepared to agree was that the voting age should be reduced to

18 for LegCo, District Board and Municipal Council elections although it is hard to see how they could have objected to this, given that the voting age is 18 in China and in Britain.

Clearly the Chinese had no objection in principle to an interim agreement encompassing LegCo issues. They agreed that the new voting age should apply to LegCo elections. They

themselves proposed that we should recommend to this Council changing the law to permit Hong Kong residents who are members

of Chinese People's Congresses to serve in LegCo and in district organisations. We were prepared to agree to that suggestion. So it is particularly hard to understand why the Chinese side refused to agree to extend the single-seat, single-vote system to LegCo, arguing that this issue should be left aside. for

discussion with other LegCo'

'LegCo' issues although they were prepared to extend the single-seat single-vote system to all

District Board and Municipal Council elections. Of course, that is the system already in force in the majority of those seats.

To be of practical value, an interim agreement would need to cover both the voting age and voting method for all 3

tiers of election.

There are strong practical and political reasons for

this. The value of an interim agreement would be that it would

buy us a little more legislative time to negotiate on the more

difficult issues. The legislation on the Legco voting method

needs to be passed as soon as possible, as this determines the

number of constituencies which will need to be drawn up. Legislating twice on voting systems would take more time, not

less.

SECRET