Aconsensus seems to have emerged that sooner, rather than later, all voters must be allowed to cast their vote for the election of the chief executive. Everything seems to point to 2012 for this happy event.
If that's the case, what does our guiding light - the Basic Law - have to say? Article 45 of the law says that the ultimate aim is 'the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures'. It will be necessary to move from the present, narrow method of final election by the 800 members of the Election Committee, and to create a broadly based nominating committee.
What better and simpler way is there to do this than to change the present Election Committee of 800 members into a nominating committee? Its four sectors of 200 each represent industry, commerce and finance; the professions; labour, social services, religious and other sectors. The fourth sector contains all the members of the Legislative Council, representatives of district organisations, deputies to the National People's Congress, and representatives to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Taken together, the four sectors represent more than 13,500 organisations throughout Hong Kong. Their huge membership chooses the representatives in each sector of 200.
The range of organisations is extensive and comprehensive: in other words, it's broadly representative of the Hong Kong community. In the first sector, there are representatives of commerce, industry, import and export, banks, insurance and other financial services, property and construction, textiles and garments, transport, tourism, catering, wholesale and retail, and so forth.
In the second, there are 10 professions including accountancy, architecture, engineering, information technology and Chinese medicine. In the third sector, labour unions elect their delegates and organisations represent a wide array of occupations that takes in fish-trade workers, professional musicians and minibus drivers. The fourth includes all lawmakers and national representatives.
In other words, the Election Committee is as broad a nominating committee as could be devised, and falls squarely within the requirements of the Basic Law. Since we have gone to such great lengths to create it, would it not be wise to use this Election Committee as the nominating committee? Why try to reinvent the wheel? Let the candidates selected by the nominating committee be put to the popular vote.
The next question is to define how the committee of 800 should go about selecting the candidates. Election rules made by the Hong Kong government say that the candidates for the post of chief executive cannot be affiliated with a political party. Is it necessary to be so restrictive? Why should a chief executive to be elected by the people of Hong Kong not be able to belong to a political party? It would be better to leave this matter open: candidates may or may not belong to a political party.