Civic Party rejects Carrie Lam's overtures on 2017 poll reform

The Civic Party will stick to its guns and vote against the political reform package, its leader said after talks with Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor yesterday, as the government plotted a massive publicity drive to win public support.

The meeting was the latest step in Lam's push to win support from at least four pan-democratic lawmakers for the final blueprint for the 2017 chief executive election. Their support is needed for the plan, which will be released on Wednesday, to get the required two-thirds majority in the Legislative Council.

But party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit said the meeting left him convinced that pan-democrats should vote down the package. He said Lam told him Beijing was "unshakeable" in its insistence that Hongkongers would only be allowed to elect their leader under a restrictive model that limited the race to two or three candidates, who would need majority support from a 1,200-strong nominating committee.

"It only made me more certain that Hongkongers should stop fantasising about the central government [changing its stance]," he said. "We can wholeheartedly vote down the proposal … then restart the steps for political reform all over again."

The 27 pan-democratic lawmakers have all vowed to veto any plan based on Beijing's framework, which they say will deny Hongkongers a real choice.

Lam's meeting with Leong and party colleague Dennis Kwok was one of several with pan-democratic lawmakers. She also met Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing, Frederick Fung Kin-kee of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood and education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen. So far, all are standing firm.