SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 has been designated as the polling day for the last set of elections to be administered by the British authorities in Hong Kong, before China resumes sovereignty over the territory.
This means that aspirants eyeing the 60 Legislative Council seats on offer are only left with less than six months to mount their campaign. Not only politicians are faced with a tight canvassing schedule, even electoral officials are racing against time to prepare for the historic ballot exercise.
The introduction of nine new functional constituencies for the 2.7 million-strong working population has turned out to be a major source of technical difficulties.
Registration for the newly enfranchised functional voters, for instance, has been less than satisfactory. The Registration and Electoral Office wrote to all 700,000 business set-ups, asking them to tender basic information on their staff members.
At the latest count, only 140,000 had responded. The number of prospective electors covered adds up to about 1.2 million.
The tally does not include the Government, which is the biggest employer in town. However, even if all the 190,000 civil servants are taken on board, the registration rate could just reach the 50 per cent threshold.