Will there be a Hong Kong Legislative Council election this year?
- Given how bad the relationship has become between China and the West, Beijing can take its own sweet time to resume elections in Hong Kong without worrying about international criticism
In a widely seen online video clip, former Hong Kong Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing poses this question that’s no doubt on the minds of many people. The short answer is, he doesn’t think so. He is probably right.
When Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor called off the election scheduled for September last year, the ostensible reason was because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The real reason, I think we can now safely state, was the impending overhaul of the election system in Hong Kong.
But while many people had guessed it at the time, few could have anticipated the sweeping changes announced earlier this month at the “two sessions”, or Lianghui.
The changes, likely to be finalised and promulgated by the National People’s Congress next month, will require not only amending Annexes 1 and 2 of the Basic Law, but also the Hong Kong government to harmonise up to 20 statutes and amendments in local law, according to an official estimate. The two annexes specify the rules for the elections of the chief executive and of legislators.
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Two sessions: China’s parliament plans an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system
As announced, there will be a significant redistribution and expansion of functional constituency (FC) seats in the Election Committee for the chief executive and in Legco. Geographic election boundaries may need to be redrawn. FC corporate voters and regular voters may need to re-register. All this takes time.
The scope of the overhaul is simply too wide for government lawyers to come up with a new set of laws ready for a Legco election in September.
So while the one-year election delay that Lam announced last year was for pandemic and political reasons, this time, it may be purely technical.
Lam and other local officials may well want a resumption of normal elections as soon as possible. After all, the current extended Legco session is seen as the worst rubber stamp in post-1997 Hong Kong history.
Hong Kong lawmakers to start discussing coming electoral shake-up
But there is also a secondary political reason for not rushing. Relationships between China and the West have hit rock bottom, especially over the recent arrests of opposition figures and activists, and the electoral reform, seen as a rollback by most foreign observers. The worst has already happened with mutual sanctions between Beijing and key countries in the Western alliance.
It’s hardly necessary to resume local elections any time soon to placate international criticism. Beijing can afford to take all the time in the world.
