Exco member delivers reform predictions

An executive councillor expects the government summing up of public views on the road to universal suffrage gathered during the reform consultation to include a further increase in district council functional constituencies in 2016 to improve prospects of a proposal to attain full democracy in 2020 being passed.

It could serve as a de facto road map for universal suffrage, which has been demanded by the pan-democratic camp.

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung believes that both moderates in the pan-democratic camp and the government do not want to see a repeat of the electoral reform proposal presented to the legislature in 2005 and that both sides have incentives to reach a consensus.

But he said it was up to pan-democrats to decide whether they would agree that the government's summary of public views on universal suffrage could justify their support for the administration's proposal for the 2012 elections.

Cheung, a former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party, also expects the administration to state in its summing up that the public wants the Election Committee that selects the chief executive in 2012 to transform itself into the committee that would nominate chief executive candidates who would then be returned by one man, one vote in 2017.

The three-month public consultation on the government's reform proposal ends today.

The administration has proposed creating 10 extra seats in the legislature - five directly elected and five voted on by district councillors - in 2012. It also proposes that the Election Committee selecting the chief executive be expanded by half to 1,200 members.