Slow vote to China

'I firmly believe that the proposed methods will mark a key milestone in the development of democracy in Hong Kong. I sincerely hope they will receive support from this council and the community.'

With these remarks in his maiden policy address entitled 'Strong governance for the people' last week, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has set the stage for Hong Kong's next step towards full democracy.

Almost two years after former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa put a brake on a constitutional reform review pending top-level consultations with Beijing in January last year, a government taskforce yesterday announced a set of electoral arrangements for the chief executive and legislature in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

In a statement on the taskforce's fifth report at a Legislative Council session, Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan said: 'This [report] signals the discussion on constitutional reform has entered a crucial stage... The reforms in 2007 and 2008 will not lead us immediately to the ultimate goal of universal suffrage, but it marks a substantive and clear step towards the goal.'

The report capped 27 months of fierce fighting over universal suffrage amid dramatic changes in the overall political landscape after 500,000 people staged a rally on July 1, 2003, against a litany of government blunders and leadership failures.

Ignited by government ignorance over fears about the now-shelved national security bill, a collective outburst of grievances against the Tung administration fuelled a mass campaign for 'returning power to the people' through dual universal suffrage by 2007.

With hindsight, the show of people power looks set to mark the beginning of the end of yet another high water mark for democracy since the British government made its first moves towards representative democracy in the early 1980s.