Election reform of Chief Executive

In the Article 45 of the Basic law stipulates that:

‘’The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People's Government.

The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon

nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.’’

As a result, this inevitable election reform prompted the first Chief executive (CE) of Hong Kong Tung Chee-Hwa who were elected to the office by Election Committee composed of 800 members in 1996 to churn out the first ever proposal in 2005 of election reform for 2012 election of Chief Executive (Martin, 2009).

The original method for selecting Chief Executive is elucidated in the Basic Law in which the Chief Executive has to be nominated and voted on by Election

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committee composed of 800 members from four different sectors:

Annex I of Basic Law:

The threshold to be a candidate for Chief Executive is to secure at least 100 votes from those of 800 members largely chosen by Chinese government.

However the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong Tung Chee-Hwa was chosen in 1996 by a selection committee of 400 people. (Martin, 2009)

In the election reform in 2005 Tung Chee-Hwa sought to increase members of Election Committee from 800 to 1600 people. But none of the substantive progress was made to accomplish universal suffrage, which was followed by the

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demonstration on December 4, 2005 to voice opposition to the proposal. On December 4, 2005 the proposal did not cross the threshold of two-third votes required to get bill of election reform passed in Legislature Council.

In the wake of failed election reform along with other issues that led to the step down of the first Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa was succeeded by Donald Tsang who won the 674 votes out of 800 Election Committee members and became the second Chief Executive of Hong Kong.

In response to the failed passage of election reform, in 2007 the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC) announced that it decided to rule out the direct election of Chief Executive in 2012 but stated that Chief

Executive may be directly elected by universal suffrage in 2017 (Martin, 2009).

Given the advent of 2012 Election, the Hong Kong government in 2009 put forth the other reform for 2012(see chart 8) in which the major revamp was the number of Election Committee curtailed to only 1200 people from the following four subsectors:

1) Industrial, commercial and financial subsectors 300 2) Professional including medical and legal subsectors 300 3) Labour, social services and religious subsectors 300 4) Political subsector 300

And to be a candidate, supports from at least 150 members of Election Committee

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are required.

This proposal finally got passed for the first time in the Legislative council after the requirement of two-third votes was met in 2010. The successful passage is largely due to the concessions made by both Central government and pro democrats. The Central Government acceptted Democratic Party’s proposal to allow 3.2 million voters to vote for five new district councilor seats in the Functional Constituency of the Legislative Council to stymie another crisis. In 2012 the third CE Leung Chun-Ying was elected to office after winning 689 votes from the Election Committee. (Yew, 2013)

Chart 8 :Method of Election of Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 2012

Source :Methods for selecting the Chief Executive in 2017 and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2016

After Chief Executive Leung took office in 2012, the intensity of the

supports for proposed universal suffrage in 2017 is still unabated. As a result, the

Chief

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Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC) announced its decision on the selection of Chief Executive in 2014, and finally grants people with universal suffrage but it was seen largely as the distorted one. All the pan-democrats in Legislative Council have stated to veto any proposal that underpins this decision. (Michael, 2015)

Why does this new proposal presumably made to fulfill constitutional obligations, render such a public uproar that later on led to the massive demonstration dubbed as umbrella movement?

The reasons are that first of all, the method of selection of Chief Executive in 2017 bears striking resemblance to the previous one except for universal suffrage.

Nomination for example, in 2012 is to be nominated and selected by Election Committee. In the latest one, Nominating Committee will nominate to three candidates for registered voters to cast ballots to.

Second of all, the composition of the Nominating Committee could be modelled on the formation of Election Committee which is allegedly composed of vest interested groups. (Yew, 2013) Thus, people in Hong Kong still cannot freely choose their preferred candidates but only those vetted by the government. Finally, to put it in a nutshell, the new election reform is just like people can choose one from two or three identical eggs in the same basket.

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Chart 9 : Method of Election of Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 2017:

Source :Methods for selecting the Chief Executive in 2017 and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2016