Push for one man, one vote to elect committee
The Alliance for True Democracy will push for the chief executive poll nominating committee to be elected by all Hong Kong voters in 2017, sources say.
The Alliance for True Democracy will push for the chief executive poll nominating committee to be elected by all Hong Kong voters in 2017, sources say.
The alliance, comprising all 27 pro-democracy legislators and other pan-democratic groups, plans to unveil its draft consensus on Wednesday.
It also wants the number of nominations a candidate can file to be capped at one-sixth of the nominating committee members, sources said.
It is understood that the alliance has yet to discuss the ideal size of the committee.
The remarks came as alliance convenor Professor Joseph Cheng Yu-shek yesterday said they would announce their fundamental consensus on Wednesday.
A person familiar with the arrangements said the alliance had drafted seven points in the consensus, which is pending confirmation.
The alliance will "fight for a broadly representative nominating committee elected by Hong Kong voters in a one-man, one-vote system", the source said.
Each committee member would be limited to nominating only one person and no cap would be set on the number of candidates.
"The nominating committee set-up cannot ensure that the nomination procedures for the chief executive poll comply with the democratic principles of being universal and equal. It should be abolished in the long run," the alliance states in the draft consensus, the has learned.
It also states that an aspiring candidate with the support of at least one-eighth of the nominating committee members - or with nominations from a certain proportion of the city's electors - should be put to the vote under universal suffrage for the 2017 chief executive election.
Sources also said that the alliance members have agreed that the chief executive should be able to be aligned with a party, which is not currently allowed.
And the alliance states it "cannot accept any 'pre-election' and 'screening' mechanisms in the formal nomination procedures", sources said.
The draft consensus also says the government "should not set any candidacy requirements that have no objective standards, like 'love the nation and Hong Kong' and 'not confrontational to the central government'", the sources said.
And the alliance will propose two rounds in the public voting stage for the 2017 race, the sources said.
Under that system, a candidate could be elected if they won more than half of the valid votes cast. If there is no clear majority, the top two candidates receiving the most votes could enter a second round of voting to decide the winner.
At an alliance forum held at City University yesterday, about half of the 200-plus audience members were from People Power. They booed loudly when Beijing loyalists, and those who supported the political reform proposal in 2010, were speaking.
