Hong Kong's candidate nominating system out of balance, says Beijing scholar
Beijing academic Chen Duanhong also says more people need to have a stake in choosing committee that will pick candidates for 2017
Hong Kong needs to address an "unreasonable" imbalance in the nominating committee for the 2017 chief executive election, a Beijing legal scholar told the Sunday Morning Post.
Professor Chen Duanhong of Peking University's law school also said there was room for talks on giving more people a stake in choosing the nominating committee.
Chen was speaking ahead of a decision expected today from the National People's Congress Standing Committee on a framework for Hong Kong's 2017 chief executive election, when the city picks its leader by "one person, one vote" for the first time.
The committee is expected to endorse a model under which only two orthree candidates may run for the office after they have secured the support of at least half of a 1,200-member nominating committee.
Sources said the NPC was likely to require the nominating committee to be modelled on the 1,193-person Election Committee that nominated and elected Leung Chun-ying two years ago. That body consists of four sectors - business, professional, social and political - each encompassing several subsectors.
The Election Committee has been criticised as unfair, not least because a small subsector such as agriculture and fisheries elects 60 representatives, while teachers and lawyers choose just 30 representatives each.