THE Hong Kong people's effort in pushing for a fully directly elected Legislative Council moved into the final phase last Friday with the publication of the Electoral Provisions (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No 3) Bill 1994 in the Gazette.
The two-page Private Member's Bill succinctly embodies the wishes and aspirations of Hong Kong people for a Legco elected by universal suffrage. It will have its first and second reading in Legco on Wednesday.
Originally I sought to amend the Government Bill on electoral reform but was ruled out of order by Legco President John Swaine who said it would have negated the Government Bill. That left me with no alternative but to move a Private Member's Bill.
My Bill proposes that the Legislative Council (Electoral Provisions) Ordinance, which provides for the current 21 functional constituency seats, shall expire on the dissolution of Legco in the summer of next year.
It further proposes that Legco shall then be composed of 60 members, directly elected by 60 geographical constituencies based on the one-constituency, one-seat premise approved by Legco in February.
Under this arrangement, the colony would be divided into 60 constituencies, each with a population of 100,000. This compares favourably with the English city of Bath, the former constituency of Governor Chris Patten which has a population of 80,000. By contrast, my New Territories East constituency has a ridiculously large population of 650,000.
Throughout this exercise, one of my key objectives is to have the question of whether Hong Kong should have a fully directly elected legislature debated in Legco and voted on. It is entirely up to legislators to vote for or against democracy. Their voteswould go down in history as it would be the first time that the colonial legislature debated this subject.