Hong Kong still seeking a middle ground on electoral reform

For the last five months, Hongkongers have been asking a key question: should the public be allowed to nominate chief executive candidates for the 2017 election? That is when some 3.5 million Hongkongers may choose the city's next leader by ballot, the first Chinese citizens to have that right.

More than 30 proposals by various political parties and think tanks across the political spectrum have suggested how the elections should unfold, as part of a public consultation on electoral reform.

But Hongkongers, swept up in election fever, have had their say, with 130,000 submissions on how to choose the city's leaders.

Party and think-tank proposals range from the most liberal - allowing voters to nominate any candidate for chief executive - to the most conservative - requiring candidates to secure the backing of at least 50 per cent of a nominating committee, expected to be dominated by Beijing loyalists.

In the 150 days since the consultation began, the rift between the two extremes has not narrowed, members of both camps say.

"The views are still polarised," said Dr Brian Fong Chi-hang, a Hong Kong Institute of Education political scientist, one of 18 academics who submitted a plan rejecting public nomination.

"Pan-democrats have been claiming the moral high ground to demand public nomination, whereas the government and Beijing loyalists have claimed the legal high ground to ban their ideas," Fong said.