Study the map on road to universal suffrage

Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's recent assertion that universal suffrage elections for the chief executive in 2017 will go ahead even if there are no reforms in 2012 is puzzling. It seems diametrically opposed to what is in the Basic Law and what Beijing officials said two years ago, when the National People's Congress Standing Committee announced its decision.

At the time, Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy secretary general of the NPC, who came to Hong Kong to explain the decision, declared: 'We hope the special administrative region can make progress in 2012. Take one step forward, progress to 2017 stably, and there is the transition. The timetable given by the NPC will be honoured.'

And Rao Geping, an NPC Basic Law Committee member, said if the development of Hong Kong's political system 'comes to a halt in 2012', the conditions for implementing universal suffrage for the chief executive election would not have been met. That is because the Basic Law stipulates 'gradual and orderly progress' in moving towards the election by universal suffrage of both the chief executive and the entire legislature.

Why is the chief executive saying now that progress in 2012 is not a condition? Perhaps officials in Hong Kong, by studying the wording of the Standing Committee's decision, have concluded that the 2017 decision is irrevocable.

But Hong Kong government legal minds do not have a good record of second-guessing the central government. In 2005, after the resignation of Tung Chee-hwa, government lawyers concluded from studying the Basic Law that the new chief executive would have a full five-year term. Beijing, however, ruled that he would only serve out the remaining period of Tung's unfinished term.

Or perhaps Tsang is trying to score points with democratic legislators, hoping they will support his reform proposals. But it is just as likely that they will now feel that rejecting his reform package will be cost-free.

In any event, what the democrats want is a road map, and all signs are that Tsang is not going to provide one. He says that how the 2017 chief executive election will be held is up to the next chief executive and that he will only focus on the 2012 elections. But this is different, certainly at least in emphasis, from a statement he issued two years ago after the Standing Committee decision.