‘Very slim chance’ Hong Kong reform package will be passed, Carrie Lam admits
Chief secretary pessimistic after failing to win over pan-democrats - and public polling reveals more bad news for the government
The chances of lawmakers approving the government's electoral reform plan for 2017 are very slim, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor admitted yesterday as a poll showed public opposition to the blueprint had hit its highest level yet.
Lam's blunt assessment came as the government ended its ill-fated round of meetings with pan-democratic lawmakers a week before the package is tabled to the Legislative Council.
All 27 pan-democrats have vowed to vote no to the plan on the grounds it would not offer voters genuine choice. Their votes are set to deny the bill the two-thirds majority it needs in the 70-member Legco after it is tabled on Wednesday next week.
"Unfortunately such meetings have failed to reverse the voting preference of any pan-democratic legislator to lead them to back the reform plan," said Lam, who is acting chief executive while Leung Chun-ying visits Canada and the United States.
Her comments came as a rolling survey by the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University and Polytechnic University showed opposition to the plan had risen by two percentage points since last week to 41.6 per cent, the highest since the poll began on April 23.
The proportion expressing support for the plan fell 2.1 percentage points to 43.7 per cent, while 14.7 per cent were undecided. That left the level of support for the proposal just 2.1 percentage points ahead of the level of opposition, within the sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Some 1,121 Hongkongers were polled between June 1 and Friday.