Pan-democrats can still gain from the current political reform proposal
Michael Paskewitz says the current electoral proposal of having only two to three candidates for chief executive may offer room for the pan-democrats to wield greater influence
Hong Kong's pan-democrats held out hope that the globally recognised Occupy protests would pressure the central and Hong Kong governments into backing down from the restrictive proposal for the chief executive election in 2017. However, officials, particularly in Hong Kong, have played their cards deftly, and resisted the pressure.
What now? What if there is no change from this hard stance during the second round of public consultation? Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen said recently that "the central government had become more cautious over the city's political reform following Occupy protests", and that it left "very little room" for changes in the proposal for the chief executive election during this round of reform.
The pan-democrats have already said they intend to veto the reform proposal, when it is put before the Legislative Council, for this reason. The National People's Congress Standing Committee decision stipulates that if the proposal is not adopted by Legco, "the method used for selecting the chief executive for the preceding term shall continue to apply".
It remains to be seen whether the government will offer the pan-democrats some concessions in the consultation period, but pundits consider this unlikely, given officials' steadfast position during the Occupy protests.
So, can the pan-democratic camp gain anything under the existing proposal? Under the current stipulations for 2017, there would be "two to three" approved candidates for election. All approved candidates would be, at least to some extent, pro-establishment, since they would need at least half of the nominating committee members' votes to have their names put forward for election by all eligible voters.
The approved candidates would run under a plurality voting system, or first past the post, in which the candidate with the most votes wins, even if he or she ends up with a minority of the total votes.
In a three-person election, the candidates would need to differentiate themselves sufficiently from one another to acquire enough support from different sectors of the public to win the election. In one scenario, if all three candidates were equally competitive, they would require at least a third of the votes, plus one, to win. The pan-democratic camp could support one candidate in exchange for a promise to enact policies they endorse.