The resignation yesterday of our chief executive has thrown up some important election issues. I believe that the National People's Congress should interpret the Basic Law, and I am also concerned at the way the election of Tung Chee-hwa's successor has been handled so far.
The Basic Law is unclear. It says that the chief executive should be elected for a five-year term, but it does not address the kind of situation we face now. The NPC should interpret this point of law because the Basic Law has another 42 years to run, and something like this could easily happen again.
Five years is a long time for anyone to serve, and this is especially so if it is a chief executive's second term. Another leader might also have to retire because of ill health, or may decide they can no longer do the job.
We have to clarify this point of law, because in future it cannot be dealt with in this way just for the sake of political expediency. This is the right time to do it.
Even though people say that they do not want the NPC to frequently interpret the Basic Law, and complain that to do so is interfering in Hong Kong's affairs, we believe that it should be done, because this will probably not be an isolated incident.
From a practical point of view, the Liberal Party thinks that it is better for the next chief executive to serve out the remaining two years of Mr Tung's term, for a number of reasons.
First, if a chief executive serves a five-year term every time we face a similar situation, the relationship between the chief executive's term of office and that of the Legislative Council would be out of sync. I do not see how we could deal with a situation where, for example, we have the sixth term of Legco at the same time as the eighth or ninth chief executive.
