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Taxi drivers demand that barriers at Admiralty be removed. Some barriers in Mong Kok were removed yesterday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Occupy students have 'almost zero chance' of success, says CY Leung

Chief executive says Beijing will not drop its framework for electoral reform, a move protesters have set as a pre-condition for talks

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said yesterday that student leaders had an "almost zero chance" of forcing Beijing to drop its restrictive framework on Hong Kong's electoral reform, which the protesters have imposed as a pre-condition of talks with officials to end the crisis.

Leung also said any talks that were not based on the Basic Law and the National People's Congress Standing Committee's ruling would not be meaningful, referring to calls by pan-democrats and student groups to allow the public to nominate chief executive candidates.

"If the pre-condition is to put aside the Basic Law and the [Standing Committee] decisions, I believe all of us know that the chance is almost zero," Leung told TVB.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in an interview with TVB on Sunday. Photo: SCMP

He reiterated that he would not resign, as the students have also demanded, and that using force to clear protesters from the streets would be a last resort.

"I believe that my resignation will not solve the problem," Leung said. "It is because the students and other occupation protesters demand more than that. They want the Standing Committee to withdraw its August 31 decision. That is impossible."

The Standing Committee ruled that Hong Kong could use "one man, one vote" to elect the chief executive in 2017, but with only two or three candidates who had majority support from a nominating committee. Pan-democrats say it is not "genuine universal suffrage" and vow to veto the proposal in Legco.

Leung also said the protest was a "mass movement that has spun out of control", not a "revolution" as suggested by some media. He said twice that he was confident the protests "cannot go on for a long time", although the government had been handling it with "maximum tolerance".

Leung added that it was the police's decision to use tear gas on September 28 but indicated he was involved in the decision to stop using it.

His remarks came as the stalemate on talks continued after officials last week called off a meeting with student leaders in response to the protest groups' plans to escalate their action.

The Federation of Students maintained it was "absolutely natural and reasonable" for Leung to resign in order to take responsibility for the "political mistakes and scandals".

The federation's deputy leader, Lester Shum, said the group appreciated that public nomination could not be achieved in a single step. "If the government thinks public nomination is not in line with the Basic Law, can it not ask [Beijing] to amend the Basic Law?" he said.

Shum said students were considering reopening Queensway and urged the government to open the forecourt of the government headquarters complex in Admiralty to protesters.

Throughout the day yesterday, the protests remained largely peaceful. By evening hundreds of tents had been set up in Mong Kok and Admiralty. In Causeway Bay, there were about 100 people.

In Mong Kok, two of five lanes at the junction of Argyle and Shanghai streets near Langham Place are open to traffic after barriers were removed by unidentified men yesterday afternoon. Vehicles can now turn left from Portland Street into Argyle Street.

Harry's view
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Students have 'almost zero chance' of success, says C.Y.
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