MUNICIPAL council and district board members might be allowed to serve beyond 1997, a senior Chinese official was yesterday quoted as saying.
The comment came in a meeting between the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) and mainland members of the Preliminary Working Committee's (PWC) political sub-group.
The DAB said the councils and boards were not organs of political power and should be treated differently from the legislature, which China has said must be disbanded in 1997.
Members should only have to go through a simple procedure to retain their seats, DAB Secretary Cheng Kai-nam said.
Deputy Director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Wang Fengchao, did not rule out the possibility that council and board members could serve beyond 1997.
However, he said that would be possible only after solving a host of legal problems.