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Regina Ip said the agriculture and fisheries representatives on the committee could be reduced to make way for younger people.

Regina Ip proposes giving seats on nominating committee to students

Regina Ip proposes cutting back agriculture and fisheries quota and giving seats to young people

The Beijing-friendly New People's Party has suggested giving students seats on the nominating committee that picks candidates for the 2017 chief executive election.

In a proposal rejected by the students and branded "idiotic" by one protester, party chairwoman Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said the agriculture and fisheries representatives on the committee could be reduced to make way for younger people.

"Our party is strongly of a view that we should give votes to young people and women since they are under-represented on the existing Election Committee," Ip said after meeting Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and other officials. "The government could do so by reducing the 60 votes available to the agriculture and fisheries" subsector.

Party vice-chairman Michael Tien Puk-sun said the reason so many young people joined the Occupy movement was that their voices could not be heard.

Taking part in civil disobedience had therefore become their only way to make their voices heard, he said.

Ip said the Federation of Students could be allocated seats as it had a long history of representing university students.

But federation deputy secretary general Lester Shum said there was very little room for negotiation as long as the restrictions imposed by Beijing on the nominating process remained.

"Such a proposal will [also] be vetoed by pan-democratic lawmakers," he said.

The idea was branded unfair by agriculture and fisheries-sector lawmaker Steven Ho Chun-yin, a government supporter.

"Proposals must be made with a theoretical base, not just out of politics," said Ho, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. "A long public consultation is also needed, because we came up with the Basic Law after years of public consultation."

City University business student Anson Cheung, 21, who has been at the Mong Kok protest zone almost every day since September 29, said the proposal was "idiotic".

"It raises the question whether Ip has ever been listening to what we want. She must have been living in a secluded forest on a hill all these weeks," she said.

At Admiralty, student Ng Tin-ho, 22, was less adamant.

"It'll help, but I'll have to see it before I judge how useful it'll be. It's not an objective I'm aiming for," Ng said.

In the Election Committee that selected the chief executive in 2012 - which is to be used as a model for the nominating committee - 60 seats for the agricultural and fisheries subsector were elected by 159 organisations, an arrangement slammed by critics as a "small-circle election".

Leo Cheung, a civil engineer who supports the students, said giving the federation seats in the committee would only establish another "small circle" within it.

"The nominating committee, in its original form, should reflect all citizens' public opinion and not just some," he said.

Former office worker Vivian Chan Yin-Wan, 43, said that even if the committee included young people, it would still not be representative. "At the very least, the voters should get to choose who's on the nominating committee."

Party leader Ip said she expected the electoral reform proposal would be put to a vote in the legislature in June as the second round of consultation is expected to begin by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on his official blog yesterday hailed the police force as "the last line of defence" of Hongkongers' stable living and the "guarantor of Hong Kong's social order". Leung said he appreciated the stress police officers were experiencing on the streets as occupiers openly defied the law and court orders.

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: 'Put students on election committee'
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