Getting Legco's turkeys to vote for Christmas could be costly

Hong Kong's legislators are among the highest-paid in the world yet they have less power than lawmakers in practically any other place where there is some form of election.

Not only are Legco members paid some 30 per cent more than, for example, their counterparts in Britain, but their pay as a ratio of gross domestic product per head is higher than that of legislators in the United States and, according to a recent survey by The Economist, much higher than that of counterparts in most of the industrialised world.

It is a cheap shot to say that our legislators don't work for their money; some work extremely hard and it is no coincidence that the hardest grafters are to be found among directly elected members. In the rotten boroughs, where election is confined to a handful of voters, some legislators cannot even be bothered to turn up for council meetings.

Whether there is much point in them bothering is another question because in Hong Kong's weird system of governance, legislators cannot even initiate legislation without government permission.

Today's Legislative Council is hardly fit for purpose. So when the time comes to fulfil the pledge of having a fully elected body, there will also be a need for a complete review of its functions.

Of course achieving a truly democratically elected Legco will hardly be plain sailing because it is now clear that Beijing is set on undermining the concept of universal suffrage for the election of the chief executive, the so-called first stage of the democratisation process. But the second stage is equally important and even more fraught because the people who will be voting on its implementation will, in the case of the rotten borough representatives, be voting for their extinction if there is anything like a plan for full democracy.

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. The bottom line of rotten borough legislators for opposing reform is simple: they don't want to submit themselves to a real election because, in most cases, they have not a chance in hell of winning.

This is the real story but rest assured it will be disguised in lots of talk about how the rotten boroughs furnish expertise and balance to the legislature. This is sheer baloney.

Yet something has to be done to get this bunch of turkeys to vote for Christmas. The obvious answer is bribery - oh, I'm sorry, I believe the polite term is "inducements". Well, lavish inducements will clearly be needed here. If there is a serious intention to reform the system, this will be a small price to pay.

So what could be offered? An obvious first choice would be money in the form of a lavish pay-off for members in constituencies that are to be abolished.

Secondly, as this is very important to these people, there is the matter of face. All of those who are currently determined to resist democratic reform are in the pro-government and pro-Beijing camp so they could be showered with offers to serve on Chinese state consultative bodies and on the myriad of committees and advisory bodies in the SAR that are anyway packed with government supporters. None of this is ideal but there is a price to be paid.

If these carrots are insufficient, some sticks will have to be brought into play. This would entail strict instructions being issued by Beijing's men in Hong Kong, and they need to make it clear that co-operation with this policy is the only way for the turkeys to secure a seat in the great limousine that will carry favoured passengers into the halls of influence.

Of course all this talk of the price to be paid begs the rather bigger question of whether there is the slightest intention to fulfil the promise of democratising the legislature in the first place. It's a very big if.

Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist and entrepreneur