Awaiting a democratic Hong Kong
Monday, 13 September, 2004,
China celebrates over HK election
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3652124.stm
Monday, 13 September, 200
Pro-China win in Hong Kong vote
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3650534.stm
Monday, 13 September, 2004
Press hails ‘record’ HK turnout
(Editorials overview from the HK papers)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3651074.stm
Sunday, 12 September, 2004
Hong Kong poll sees record vote
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3648568.stm
Friday, 10 September, 2004
How HK legislative poll works
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3644178.stm
Thursday, 9 September, 2004,
HK legislative poll points to the future
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3638428.stm
Tuesday, 17 August, 2004
HK politician in prostitute claim
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3572152.stm
Tuesday, 27 April, 2004,
Where next for HK’s democracy?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3662059.stm
How HK legislative poll works
The people of Hong Kong go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new 60-seat legislature.
Most of the attention will focus on the 30 seats being decided by direct election by the territory’s three million voters.
The seats, divided among five geographical constituencies, will be decided by a complex system of proportional representation that makes it difficult for any single party to dominate.
Competition is expected to be fierce, but candidates favouring more democracy are expected to make gains at the expense of pro-China parties, who tend to support the status quo.
HONG KONG VOTE
All 60 seats in Legislative Council up for grabs
Only half are decided by direct elections
Other half reserved for business and professional groups
The other 30 seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo) are being chosen by functional constituencies, which represent various corporate and professional groups.
Less than 200,000 people have a vote to elect these representatives, through a series of complex and often secretive elections.
In the past, most of the LegCo candidates chosen by the functional constituencies have been pro-government – and therefore pro-China – leading democracy advocates to complain that the system is biased against them.
In the outgoing legislature, pro-democracy candidates held 22 seats, against 30 seats held by pro-China politicians.
The pro-democracy parties hope a strong showing, and high voter turn-out, will back their argument that China should allow the territory a greater say in running its own affairs.
Limited autonomy
Hong Kong’s complex and often confusing legislative process is, in part, a legacy of its time as a British colony.
The territory was handed back to China in 1997, but under an agreement made by London and Beijing it has retained a limited degree of autonomy.
Sunday’s election will not decide who runs the government.
Currently, Hong Kong is led by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, who was chosen by Beijing at the time of the handover and re-elected in 2002 by a largely pro-Beijing election committee.
The next election for chief executive will be held in 2007, and while pro-democracy forces have lobbied extensively for the leader to be directly elected by the people of Hong Kong, Beijing has ruled this out – at least for the 2007 poll.
But if the pro-democracy camp does well, it might control enough seats in LegCo to challenge the government on controversial legislation, and on its budget, which LegCo must approve.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 