DAB sparks democrat fury with 2017 poll proposals for chief executive

The main pro-Beijing party says candidates for the 2017 chief executive election  should have to get the backing of more than half the nominating committee, leading pan-democrats to promise a “full political confrontation” if the suggestion was adopted.

The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong also want a block-voting system in the committee, which the pan-democrats say would allow “full-scale manipulation” of the choice of candidates.

Majority support of the nominating committee and the block-voting system “have been the requirements intended by Beijing according to our understanding since we started reform deliberations”, a member of the DAB’s electoral reform panel said.

The party plans to present its proposal at the end of the month but says it is ready to change it if the pan-democrats reach a compromise in their meeting with Beijing officials in Shanghai this weekend.

“Pan-democrats can never accept such a proposal,” Alliance for True Democracy convenor Professor Joseph Cheng Yu-shek said. “If that really represents the view of Beijing ... we have no choice but to prepare for full political confrontation.”

Under such a system, “any political power dominating the nominating committee would be able to control the whole candidate list”.

The alliance, consisting of 26 of the 27 pan-democrat lawmakers, has proposed a three-track system by which candidates could be chosen by public nomination open to all voters or through support from parties.