To allow more people to participate in the next Chief Executive election, the Government proposes dropping the number of nominating committee votes required from 150 to 120.
This was the message from Chief Secretary Carrie Lam while outlining the Government's electoral reform plan at the Legislative Council today.
She said the proposal complies with the Basic Law and the National People's Congress Standing Committee decision made last August.
She said the Government has worked to find the best common ground to balance divergent requests and perspectives.
The Government suggests keeping the composition and formation method for the nominating committee unchanged.
The nominating procedures should be divided into two stages, namely "members' recommendation" and "committee nomination".
For "members' recommendation", a person recommended by 120 committee members can seek nomination for the election. Each member can recommend one person, and each person seeking nomination can obtain no more than 240 recommendations.
Mrs Lam said this system can allow at least five, and at most 10, places for those seeking nomination.
For "committee nomination", committee members can nominate two to three CE candidates through a secret ballot vote. Each member should support at least two people, or at most can vote for all seeking nomination.
The successful candidates must obtain the highest number of endorsements and get the backing of at least half the committee members.
The proposals come after two rounds of public consultation. The second-round, running from January to March, included 88 consultative sessions and district activities, and attracted over 130,000 written submissions.
"If the universal suffrage proposals for the selection of the CE are vetoed, we will miss this golden opportunity. Not only will constitutional development come to a standstill, it will also be impossible to say when the 'Five-step Process' can be initiated again to implement universal suffrage for the selection of the CE,” Mrs Lam added.
