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Alex Lo
SCMP Columnist
My Take
by Alex Lo
My Take
by Alex Lo

The rotten buroughs that are the main stumbling block to reform

The devil is in the specifics. Moderate Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah had his finger on the matter when he asked the government to vow to lower the 50 per cent nomination threshold for chief executive candidates in the 2022 poll.

The devil is in the specifics. Moderate Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah had his finger on the matter when he asked the government to vow to lower the 50 per cent nomination threshold for chief executive candidates in the 2022 poll and scrap the functional constituencies in the 2020 Legislative Council election if it wanted his support. The government's reply is instructive.

"Although I am desperate to gain Tong's vote," said Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Secretary Raymond Tam Chi-yuen, "I think he would be disappointed because his demands are not feasible in terms of the constitutional setting and political reality."

Officials from the chief secretary down have repeatedly promised that the 2017 chief executive election, if proceeded within the framework set by Beijing, would not be the end point in the evolution of Hong Kong towards representative government.

But all those promises would mean nothing even if they were written down if Beijing would not concede to lowering the 50 per cent threshold or disbanding the functional constituencies. They won't happen any time soon, though.

Beijing has drawn an explicit linkage between the functional constituencies in Legco and the future nomination committee for the chief executive. The stricture set by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has established this. First, there will be no change to the 2016 Legco election. This means the functional constituencies stay.

Second, the future nomination committee is to be modelled on the 2012 election committee. But many of the sub-sectors within three of the election committee's four sectors - businesses; professions; and labour, social services and religion - simply replicate the functional constituencies in Legco. Even the fourth, political sector, gives the Heung Yee Kuk - the New Territories village body - broad representation, as Legco does.

If Beijing kills the functional constituencies, it would not only undermine the balance of power in Legco, but the raison d'être of the nomination committee. Clearly this would not do. Those rotten boroughs have become the main stumbling block to political reform.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: The rotten boroughs blocking reform
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