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SCMP Reporter

About 140,000 of the 2.8 million registered voters will choose constituents for the Election Committee.

 A week-long nomination period begins on Friday.

 The weight of individual votes varies dramatically from sector to sector.

 The 53,575 voters in the education sector will return 20 members in the Election Committee sub-sector election on April 2.

 But deputies to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, with an electorate of only about 100, return 51 legislators.

 In the hotel industry, candidates for the 11 seats there will have only 81 voters to lobby.

 The Agricultural and Fisheries sector has 164 voters and 40 seats.

 The committee is a form of indirect election, whereby functional voters and other selected groups delegate to 800 people the right to return 10 legislators for the first SAR Legislative Council.

 The number of seats filled by the committee will be reduced to six in the 2000 poll and zero in 2004.

 According to the Legislative Council Ordinance, the Election Committee will be returned by four categories of voters.

 They are the business sector, consisting of 17 functional constituencies; the professional sector, with 10 constituencies; the grassroots and religious sector; and politicians.

 The last sector, for politicians, has 86 ex-officio seats reserved for the SAR's 35 National People's Congress deputies and 60 provisional legislature members.

 Nine people are members of both bodies.

 Members of the religious sector will be nominated instead of elected.

 The 711 people to be returned on April 2 will then join their 86 ex-officio counterparts in returning 10 legislators allocated for the Election Committee.

 Each member will have 10 votes.

 In the 1995 elections, the Election Committee comprised elected district board members.



Week-long nominations for poll body set to begin