Government says there is room for change in how lawmakers are elected

Allowing more people to vote for functional constituency lawmakers and reorganising some Legislative Council constituencies are among the ideas the government is considering to make the legislature more democratic at the 2016 election.

The changes were mooted by the constitutional affairs minister despite the government saying in a report to Beijing on electoral reform last week that there was no need to alter the Basic Law in relation to the legislature.

While the mini-constitution sets out the number of seats in the legislature and its voting procedures, it does not detail how lawmakers are elected.

Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen said the government would put a proposal for reform of Legco out to consultation before the end of this year. The government is expected to reveal its proposal for a democratic election for chief executive - the main focus of last week's report to Beijing - at about the same time.

"[We can see] if it is possible to expand the base electorate of some functional constituencies," Tam said. "We also received some views [in an earlier consultation] that some functional constituencies can be merged and some can be scrapped."

One possibility Tam raised was splitting up two of the five geographical constituencies, New Territories West and New Territories East. The two seats have about twice as many voters and lawmakers as Kowloon West.