'Reforms Will Remove Any Pretence Of Real Elections'

A political analyst said on Tuesday that it will almost be impossible for Hong Kong to hold free and fair elections in future if the central government introduces sweeping reforms to the SAR's electoral system.

The National People's Congress (NPC) will hold its annual meeting this week and it's widely expected that Beijing will put forward plans to further screen out opposition voices, in order to ensure that only "patriots" rule Hong Kong.

A local deputy to the NPC, Ip Kwok-him, said it is highly likely that mainland officials will announce the removal of all district councillors from the 1,200-strong election committee that selects the chief executive.

But political analyst Ma Ngok from Chinese University said such a move would be unreasonable and would amount to doing away with essential elements of public participation in the selection of Hong Kong’s leader.

“[The election committee] is supposed to include representatives from different social and political sectors. In the past … the government has always claimed that the district councils are more representative of local public opinion, so I would say this is a kind of refutation to the past government position,” he said.

Ma also hit back at suggestions that the 117 seats occupied by district councillors could be taken over by local delegates to the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

“Hong Kong people never cast a vote for the NPC and CPPCC members, but Hong Kong people did cast a vote for the district councillors,” he argued.

The CUHK scholar also lashed out at a suggestion to set up an “eligibility vetting committee” to screen potential candidates for future Legco polls, saying this proposal would essentially abolish all democratic elements of the local election system.

“I would say that is doing away with any pretence of democratic elections once and for all because by international standards, the most important thing in free elections is people are free to run without being subject to any kind of screening,” he said.

Ma said the general Hong Kong public no longer believes that Hong Kong still has free and fair elections, adding that if the sweeping changes are implemented, the international community will only be all the more convinced that the SAR's election system is being manipulated.