Universal suffrage ultimate goal
July 15, 2014
Hong Kong people must seize the opportunity to achieve the historic goal of universal suffrage by resolving their differences.
This was the message from Chief Executive CY Leung at a press conference on the Government’s constitutional reform reports today.
He said universal suffrage in the Chief Executive election as the ultimate aim is provided by the Basic Law, a Chinese national law, which shows the Central Government is committed to achieving this goal.
He said that the essence of the Chief Executive’s report to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee is to state that the method for electing the Chief Executive in 2017 should be amended while the consultation report is to collect and reflect comprehensively and truthfully all the views and proposals expressed in Hong Kong during the consultation period.
“We have not ruled out anything in the two reports and we have not made choices in this exercise.”
The report contained views on whether civic nomination is in compliance with the Basic Law, including those expressed by the two legal professional bodies, he said.
On the method of forming the Legislative Council in 2016, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said some of the problems seen at the council recently, such as filibustering, have arisen from its rules of procedures, which are not related to increasing the number of seats or changing the split between geographically elected seats and those from functional constituencies.
