Adopt proportional representation in HK
One of the most contentious issues to be addressed in the formulation of the electoral procedures for the first legislative council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) is undoubtedly going to be the voting system for the geographical directly-elected constituencies. A task that is further complicated by the small number of directly-elected seats on offer.
An objective of the Preparatory Committee appears to be to facilitate a legislature that can accommodate a wide variety of views, perhaps no bad thing in our executive-led environment.
This can best be achieved by adopting a system of proportional representation and in particular the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, which is regarded as the most accurate way of reflecting proportionality and has the added advantage of facilitating effective participation by independent candidates.
However, while STV can work in two-seat constituencies and on balance would probably offer the opportunity for a wider range of candidates to be elected than would the single vote system in two-seat constituencies, it achieves a much better representation of proportionality when used in constituencies of four or five seats.
Two-seat constituencies, due to their voter size, already present a challenge to candidates to adequately address and ultimately represent their constituents, particularly independents or those from small parties, so to double or more constituency size to accommodate four or more candidates would stretch the candidate voter relationship to an unacceptably tenuous degree.
The party list system of proportional representation, on the other hand, could well pass muster in a larger multi-seat constituency format, but it effectively eliminates independent candidates and very small parties.
Based on the voting patterns for the 1995 Legislative Council, the single vote system in two-seat constituencies would almost certainly produce a legislature heavily dominated by the Democratic Party and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) legislators, as both parties were each able to secure 40 per cent of the vote or more in the constituencies they contested, with perhaps one Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood and a couple of the strongest independents also coming through. In a single vote system with constituencies of four or five seats there would be tremendous distortion in terms of proportionality.
Inevitably in a four-seat constituency system there would be a Democratic Party and a DAB legislator returned, as they would be likely to secure more than 80 per cent of the votes in each constituency in aggregate and the remaining two legislators would be elected sharing 20 per cent or less of the total vote between them.
The disproportionality of this system would be reflected in the Legislative Council as a whole, where the Democratic Party and DAB would have a total of 10 legislators, whereas from a percentage of votes cast they would have deserved an aggregate 16 seats.
At this early stage of our democratic development it can be seen that no system of voting and constituency size is going to provide us with a legislature that reasonably reflects the reality of voter sentiment and it will be a question of choosing the least bad system.
Taking into consideration that the ultimate aim in Hong Kong is to have all 60 seats returned by direct election, at which time the STV system in four or five-seat constituencies, which would then have a voter population smaller than for the 1991 two-seat constituencies, would then be able to reflect truly representative proportionality, it would seem appropriate to adopt this voting method with the setting up of the first legislative council of the SAR.
A common criticism of STV is that its allocation of priority among the candidates by the voter is a complex exercise.
However, surely, this is what most potential voters are doing most Saturday afternoons and Wednesday evenings for the greater part of the year when completing their slips for the sophisticated bets that seem to be so hugely popular with our punters.
STV would be a familiar friend indeed. GEORGE CAUTHERLEY The Peak