It will be meaningful to start early public consultations on the pros and cons of direct elections only if they can be conducted with an open mind and the results genuinely comply with the public wish gleaned therefrom.
There must be a desire by the government to implement direct elections, otherwise we will end up with more endless and abstract debates on whether Hong Kong is 'mature' enough for democracy plus the usual admonition that any progress must be 'gradual and orderly'. Note the waste of the Article 23 consultations.
Further, although the Basic Law provides for the possibility of direct election of the chief executive from around 2007, Article 45 says that the central government can in theory refuse to appoint the person. This is perhaps not such a big contradiction. As C. Y. Leung has repeatedly reminded us, Hong Kong is promised a 'high degree of autonomy', not complete autonomy.
Direct elections or not - perhaps it does not really matter after all?
KEVIN CHING, Mid-Levels
