Surveys reveal only one thing - the public is evenly split on 2017 political reform

At 1.30pm tomorrow, the Legislative Council will start debating the most contentious constitutional reform proposal in the post-handover era.

A vote is expected to be taken on Friday. In a significant departure from the passage of other bills or resolutions, lawmakers this time are unlikely to pay heed to what the public thinks.

Instead, they plan to stick to their beliefs. For pan-democrats, it is a decades-old struggle for true democracy. For Beijing loyalists, it is to pledge allegiance to the National People's Congress Standing Committee's restrictive framework, which has formed the basis of the proposal and that critics argue would not lead to genuine democracy.

At issue is the election of the chief executive in 2017. At most there will be three candidates, vetted by a 1,200-member nominating committee dominated by pro-establishment figures.

The local government began the reform process vowing to win over the public. The use of polling was to be its key strategy to convince sceptics, but it has found itself confronting divisive and sometimes disappointing results.

According to the rolling poll by three universities, opposition and support for the proposal has been neck and neck, although in the University of Hong Kong's latest survey released yesterday, 51 per cent of people called for Legco to approve the bill.