'Split voting' and abstentions kill record number of Legco proposals
Monitor says complex rules and growing rate of abstention mean many motions are rejected despite having more backers than opponents
The Legislative Council's controversial "split-voting" system caused a record 98 motions to fall in the last session that would otherwise have been approved, a monitoring group said yesterday as it called for the system to be scrapped.
Under split voting, a Legco motion put forward by a lawmaker must be approved by a majority of all lawmakers in both the geographical constituencies, elected by the public at large, and the functional constituencies, largely elected by business sectors and interest groups.
The system means that it is possible that more lawmakers vote "yes" than "no" to a particular motion yet it fails because of abstentions. It does not apply to votes on government motions.
Catholic Monitors revealed the findings on the day pan-democrat Charles Mok saw a motion to invoke Legco's powers to investigate the government's decision on free-to-air television licensing voted down by functional constituency lawmakers despite support from geographical representatives.
The group, which has monitored Legco for two decades, also criticised a growing number of abstentions and missed votes by Beijing-loyalist lawmakers, especially members of the city's largest party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.
Catholic Monitors member Francis Hui Wai-bun questioned whether the abstentions by DAB members were a way to avoid going against their working-class support base on livelihood issues while not risking their patriotic credentials by backing motions from pan-democrats.