OUR draft, often quoted as the ''Liberal Party 1994 package'' is the result of a much wider cross-section of Legislative Council members than those of the Liberal Party.
It stands a reasonable chance of passing the council as an alternative to Governor Chris Patten's 1992 measures. There is no other viable choice.
Hong Kong people want to see compromise and stability. Amid signs of a possible thaw in Sino-British relations, we do not want to see the arguments of the past two years rekindled again on Wednesday.
Our measures propose two things which are essential if we are to have a legislature which converges with the system after 1997.
First, we must create nine new functional constituencies to add to the existing 21 as per the Basic Law. Secondly, an election committee must be set up to elect 10 Legislative Council members, also similar to the system enshrined in the Basic Law.
Before the promulgation of the Basic Law in 1990, the British and Chinese governments, through the subsequently revealed exchange of diplomatic letters, saw great merit in making the pre-and post-1997 Legislative Council dovetail with each other. Certain understandings of good faith were in those letters. Our package is trying to stick to the essence of those understandings.
Our draft follows the same principles adopted when functional constituencies were introduced by the Hong Kong Government. This is fundamentally different from Mr Patten's '92 offering which gives new meaning to functional constituencies by extending the electorate to everyone who works in one of nine broad categories of industries.
