Pan-democrats have vowed to veto the government's 2012 election proposals unless they are offered a road map to universal and equal suffrage that abolishes functional constituencies.
They reject the idea of 'balanced participation of all sectors and groups of society', the principle in the Basic Law under which the business and professional sectors are effectively overrepresented in the committee that elects the chief executive, as well as in the Legislative Council through some two-thirds of the 30 functional constituency seats.
The rationale is that, guided by their own interests and knowledge, these sectors are best able to make choices that foster prosperity and stability. At the same time, a broad representation including labour and other sectors provides checks and balance.
Recent developments in Taiwan and Thailand have highlighted the importance of having constitutional safeguards to prevent universal suffrage being exploited or devolving in ways that are detrimental to long-term stability.
Hence, Beijing has indicated its belief - quite possibly shared by most Hongkongers - that 'balanced participation' should stay. But what form should it take to be consistent with universal and equal suffrage, even in a restricted sense?
One option is bicameralism. That might involve, say, hiving off functional constituencies to form a second chamber of the legislature, with different (and perhaps lesser) powers than those of the chamber returned by universal suffrage.
Another option is to keep functional constituencies. New functional seats could be created for housewives and young people not yet in work, for example, so that every voter would get two votes - one in their functional constituency, and one in a geographical constituency. The influence of the business sector would be diluted.