Hong Kong electoral reforms: Beijing considers ‘breaking up Legco constituencies, scrapping super seats’

Beijing is contemplating drastic reforms to Hong Kong’s electoral system by breaking up the current five geographical constituencies into 18 districts and scrapping five popularly returned seats in the legislature, the Post has learned.

One of the leading proposals being considered by the central government is to replace the proportional representation system – adopted since Hong Kong’s first postcolonial Legislative Council polls in 1998 – with a “one vote, two seats” mechanism to allocate the 35 directly elected seats in the 70-strong chamber.

Sources revealed various possible reforms to the Post a day after Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said effective measures must be put in place to prevent “non-patriots” from controlling the city’s political organs.

He said that included key posts in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches as well as statutory bodies, but stopped short of spelling out how such mechanisms would be institutionalised in elections.

Pro-establishment figures told the Post the existing five geographical constituencies could be broken down into 18, adopting the same electoral boundaries of the city’s 18 district councils. One of the sources called this revamp “practical” as it would require no effort in redrawing constituencies.