Henry Tang urges realistic proposal for 2017 chief executive election

Beaten chief executive hopeful Henry Tang Ying-yen has warned Hongkongers to expect a "tightly regulated" election in 2017 as he put forward electoral reform proposals he said were more "conservative" than he truly wanted.

And the former chief secretary, beaten by Leung Chun-ying in 2012 amid a scandal over an illegal "underground palace" at his home, said he would not run when the public chooses the city's leader for the first time.

Tang's proposal includes a cap on the number of candidates and a system under which members of the nominating committee will have multiple votes and choose candidates as a collective. He called for debate on whether a candidate with support from as little as one-eighth of the committee members should be able to stand, as in previous elections when the winner was elected by the 1,200-strong body.

"[Beijing officials] have said … the nominating committee shall put forward candidates as an institution, and it means the candidates have to be representative," said Tang, a member of the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. "Is it representative enough, if you only have 100 to 200 nominations?"

His comments are likely to stoke concerns among pan-democrats that the nominating committee will "screen" critics of Beijing out of the election.

The government consultation on reform ends next month, and the National People's Congress Standing Committee is expected to give its blessing to the reform process in August.

But Tang warned Hongkongers not to expect too much. "Because this is the first time we're having universal suffrage, meaning 'one man, one vote', [nomination] arrangements will be fairly tightly regulated," Tang said.