Anson Chan calls for law allowing future changes to election process

Former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang on Monday said the government should state definitively, possibly through legislation, its promise that the methodology of future chief executive elections will be refined if its current political reform proposal is passed.

Such legislation must include a clear timetable on how the city will move towards genuine universal suffrage for the chief executive and the legislature, Chan said on DBC radio.

She was commenting on an offer by the government that the chief executive elections after 2017 would be open to further change, which it made to lure support for its current reform plan.

Chan said the government should go one step further than a verbal promise and make the pledge binding, such as through a law.

“Merely a promise is not enough. I think it needs to put it black and white, the best way being through legislation and to include a clear timetable,” she said.

She said the Hong Kong and central governments had failed to fulfil their promises on universal suffrage during public consultation on electoral reform over the past 18 months.