ENG-1997 — Page 52

CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION

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Elections to the district organisations will be held before the term of office of the Provisional Urban Council, the Provisional Regional Council and the Provisional District Boards expires by December 31, 1999. The method for the formation of the district organisations will be prescribed by law to be enacted by the HKSAR in accordance with the Basic Law.

Electoral System for the Legislative Council

(a) Geographical Constituency

The 20 members of the first term of the Legislative Council to be returned from geographical constituencies will be elected by universal suffrage. The HKSAR will be divided into five geographical constituencies, each having three to five seats. The List Voting System operating under the Largest Remainder formula, which is a form of the proportional representation voting system, will be adopted. Candidates will contest the election in the form of lists, and each list of candidates may consist of any number of candidates up to the number of seats in the relevant constituency. Any permanent resident of the HKSAR who is a Chinese citizen with no right of abode in any foreign country may stand for election in any geographical constituency, provided that he is a registered elector on the General Electoral Roll, has attained the age of 21, and has ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for the preceding three years. Electors may vote only in the constituency in which they are registered. (b) Functional Constituency

Each functional constituency represents an economic, social, or professional group which is of substantial size and importance in the HKSAR. These are: (1) Urban Council; (2) Regional Council; (3) Heung Yee Kuk; (4) agriculture and fisheries; (5) insurance; (6) transport; (7) education; (8) legal; (9) accountancy; (10) medical; (11) health services; (12) engineering; (13) architectural, surveying and planning; (14) labour; (15) social welfare; (16) real estate and construction; (17) tourism; (18) commercial (first); (19) commercial (second); (20) industrial (first); (21) industrial (second); (22) finance; (23) financial services; (24) sports, performing arts, culture and publication; (25) import and export; (26) textiles and garment; (27) wholesale and retail; and (28) information technology. The labour functional constituency returns three Legislative Council members and the other 27 functional constituencies return one member each.

For functional constituency elections, a candidate must, besides satisfying the usual age and residential requirements, be a registered elector on the General Electoral Roll and also a registered elector of, or have a substantial connection with, the relevant functional constituency. To give due recognition to the significant contribution made by foreign nationals and to enable them to be represented in the Legislative Council, permanent residents of the HKSAR who are not of Chinese nationality or who have the right of abode in foreign countries may also stand for election in 12 designated functional constituencies (i.e. functional constituencies No. 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25 in the preceding paragraph). Elections for functional constituencies will be determined by simple majority, except for the six small functional constituencies (i.e. functional constituencies No. 1 to 6 in the preceding paragraph) which will be determined by preferential elimination system.

Functional constituencies which represent professional groups have electorates based on membership of those professions with well-established and recognised