Political situation
Written by: Sha Banshan
2021-03-03 07:00
Last update date: 2021-03-03 07:00
The National Two Sessions were held this week, and there was widespread rumors in the political circles that this meeting would modify Hong Kong’s electoral system, including the election of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive’s Election Committee.
Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Xia Baolong attended a symposium in Shenzhen a few days ago to listen to opinions on revising the electoral system and implementing the "patriots ruling Hong Kong."
At this meeting, the remarks of former National People’s Congress Standing Committee Member and former Legislative Council Chairman Fan Xu Litai, Legislative Council Member Liang Meifen and others have aroused widespread concern. As reported by "Hong Kong 01" a few days ago, their speeches are generally regarded as Beijing’s "drama track". spoiler".
In addition, it has also been reported recently in political circles that Beijing is studying the "resurrection" of the "historical product" of the "Election Committee" seats of the Legislative Council in the early days after the reunification.
Beijing's "ventilation" campaign to study changes to the electoral system can be traced back to the online seminar on "Hong Kong by Patriots" held by the National Hong Kong and Macau Research Association on February 22.
On that day, in addition to Xia Baolong's first public speech in the year since he took office as the director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, setting the tone for patriots ruling Hong Kong, the designers who participated in the design of the "rules of the game" for Hong Kong's new elections were also exposed on the same day.
Fan Tai mentioned that the 117 electoral committees currently elected by district board members should be eliminated on the constituent parts of the electoral committee. (Information picture)
One of the designers of Hong Kong’s new electoral system exposed that He Junzhi led a group to study in Beijing for two months
The research meeting of the day was divided into three parts.
First was the opening ceremony, with Xia Baolong giving a speech.
The second part is the keynote speech, chaired by Xu Ze, President of the National Hong Kong and Macau Studies Association and former deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. The four speakers are Han Dayuan, a professor of Renmin University Law School and a member of the Basic Law Committee, and Tsinghua University Law who was the former head of the Law Department of the Liaison Office Professor Wang Zhenmin of the college, Liu Zhaojia, vice president of the National Society for Hong Kong and Macau Studies who was the chief adviser of the Central Policy Group of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, and Professor Luo Weijian from the Faculty of Law of the University of Macau.
The third part is a special seminar, divided into three themes: the principle of patriots ruling Hong Kong, the current problems and the countermeasures.
Throughout the seminar, a total of 15 people except Xia Baolong made speeches, of which five were from Hong Kong. They were Liu Zhaojia, the Deputy Commissioner of Independent Commission Against Corruption, Guo Wenwei, the Secretary-General of the Hong Kong Law Exchange Foundation, and the former Executive Council. Non-official member Zhang Zhigang and Beijing Hong Kong and Macao Scholars Research Center Lin Zhaohui.
Among the non-Hong Kong speakers was He Junzhi, the executive vice president of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Development Research Institute of Sun Yat-sen University and the vice-president of the National Hong Kong and Macao Research Association.
According to Wen Junzhi, he stayed in Beijing for two months earlier and led a team to formulate a plan for the central government to modify the Hong Kong election system.
Beijing's final plan now is to use He's "works" as the basic framework.
In fact, the "Xinhua News Agency" published an exclusive interview in mid-February criticizing the loopholes in the Hong Kong election system. He Junzhi was one of the interviewees. At that time, candidates for Hong Kong elections were required to undergo a qualification review.
The recommendations at the He Junzhi seminar coincide with Fan Xu Litai’s remarks
It is reported that in the above-mentioned "Patriots Governing Hong Kong" online seminar, He Junzhi spoke in the second part of his speech. He mentioned that the current direct election of the Legislative Council does not reflect the principle of balanced participation. He suggested that the constituency should be broken down.
This coincides with the proposal of "Fan Tai" to divide about 10 electoral districts and adopt the "double-seat single-vote system".
There are suggestions that candidates for election to the Legislative Council must have political party connections
In addition, it is reported that one of the speakers, Lin Zhaohui, also pointed out at the seminar that future politicians must have political connections, that is, candidates for the Legislative Council must belong to political parties and require political parties to produce a statement confirming that the person conforms to the party’s political ideals. .
If the proposal is finally accepted, "naked people" without a political party background will not be able to stand for elections, and the "naked politics" that has risen rapidly in recent years will also become extinct.
Another source of information is that Beijing's plan to reform the electoral system of the Legislative Council includes resetting the seats of the "Election Committee."
The first Legislative Council election after the return of Hong Kong had a total of 60 seats, including 20 directly elected seats, 30 functional constituencies, and 10 electoral committees.
The so-called election committee seats are elected by a 400-member election committee (similar to the current Chief Executive Election Committee). The committee is composed of four groups of people, 100 people each from the business and finance circles, the professional circles, the labor grassroots religious circles, and the former politicians. .
From the perspective of the relevant structure, the 10 seats are all in the pocket of the establishment.
By the second Legislative Council election, the Election Committee was reduced to 6 seats; the third Legislative Council, all the seats on the Election Committee were cancelled.
If the election committee seats are re-established in the future, the old system will be "resurrected."
Politicians also estimated that there are two ways to join the Election Committee: one is to fill the five super district council seats that are likely to be cancelled, and the other is to reduce the number of directly elected seats in the districts. If Fan Tai proposes to divide about 10 districts, Each district has 2 seats, that is, 20 seats are directly elected, and 15 seats can be replaced by election committee seats.
Of course, it is now stipulated that the functional constituency and the district directly elected seats each have half of the seats. If the number of directly elected seats is reduced, the corresponding action Beijing must take will be even greater.
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