Regina Ip proposes giving seats on nominating committee to students

The Beijing-friendly New People's Party has suggested giving students seats on the nominating committee that picks candidates for the 2017 chief executive election.

In a proposal rejected by the students and branded "idiotic" by one protester, party chairwoman Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said the agriculture and fisheries representatives on the committee could be reduced to make way for younger people.

"Our party is strongly of a view that we should give votes to young people and women since they are under-represented on the existing Election Committee," Ip said after meeting Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and other officials. "The government could do so by reducing the 60 votes available to the agriculture and fisheries" subsector.

Party vice-chairman Michael Tien Puk-sun said the reason so many young people joined the Occupy movement was that their voices could not be heard.

Taking part in civil disobedience had therefore become their only way to make their voices heard, he said.

Ip said the Federation of Students could be allocated seats as it had a long history of representing university students.