Occupy Central poll leaves moderate democrats no room to manoeuvre, say advisers

Mainland academics who advise Beijing on Hong Kong affairs do not think there is any chance of reaching a consensus on the 2017 chief executive election in the wake of the unofficial referendum on political reform.

Qi Pengfei, vice-chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said the huge turnout for the exercise organised by Occupy Central reflected the fact most people wanted to achieve universal suffrage in 2017.

After counting 7,025 paper votes cast at polling stations, the three-track proposal put forward by the Alliance for True Democracy secured 333,962 votes, or 42.1 per cent of the 792,808 valid ballots cast during the 10-day exercise that ended on Sunday.

The alliance comprised 26 of the 27 pan-democratic lawmakers, until some quit yesterday.

A blueprint put forward by Scholarism and the Federation of Students attracted 304,319 votes, followed by People Power's proposal, with 82,003.

Under the alliance's proposal, the public, political parties and nominating committee would nominate candidates. But it remains vague on the details of how this would be achieved.