James Tien proposes 'one person, two votes' for functional impasse
'One person, two votes' should be introduced to get round public objections to the functional constituencies which Beijing seems determined to retain, says the Liberal Party's former chairman.
People registered to vote in a geographical constituency would be able to choose which of the functional constituencies to cast their second ballot in, James Tien Pei-chun envisages.
'Since Beijing is now set to keep functional constituencies, it would be more acceptable to the public for groups representing these constituencies to nominate candidates, who would be elected by all voters,' Tien said in an interview.
Despite Beijing's promise that the legislature may be elected by universal suffrage in 2020, the government will not say whether functional constituencies are compatible with universal suffrage.
Under Tien's proposal, when universal suffrage is introduced in 2020 half the Legco seats would be returned by direct election and the rest would have candidates nominated by the various trade and professional groups.
With voters able choose a functional constituency in which to cast a second vote, people's voting rights would be equal and the proposal would be compatible with the principle of universal suffrage. It would also keep expert views and sectoral interests in a legislature otherwise dominated by career politicians.
Tien, who quit as chairman after his party lost its directly elected seats - including his own - in the 2008 election, said the Liberals should turn their focus back to functional seats as well as highlighting business values when running in direct elections. He said that, while the pro-business party had in the past agreed to the gradual phasing out of the trade-based seats, it had 'never dropped functional constituencies'.
Meanwhile the League of Social Democrats and Civic Party stepped up campaigning for Legco by-elections which they hope to turn into a de facto referendum on the pace and scope of democratisation. One of their candidates, Leung Kwok-hung, called on pan-democrats in Legco to resign if Beijing declared functional constituencies compatible with universal suffrage through an interpretation of the Basic Law.
