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Backgrounder: Hong Kong universal suffrage package

Xinhua, April 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Under Hong Kong's Basic Law and the decisions of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), more than 5 million qualified Hong Kong voters could have a say to who will become the chief executive in 2017 through the"one man, one vote"election.

Hong Kong's first chief executive was elected by a 400-member Selection Committee, while the second, third and fourth chief executives were elected by the Election Committee, with its membership increasing from 800 to 1,200.

On the basis of the Basic Law and the relevant interpretation and decisions of the NPC Standing Committee, the method for selecting the chief executive consists of three main steps: nomination, election by universal suffrage and appointment.

According to the Basic Law and the top legislature's interpretation in 2004, there is a five-step process in Hong Kong' s constitutional development.

The first two steps are: the chief executive to make a report to the NPC Standing Committee as to whether there is a need to amend the election methods for the chief executive and the region' s legislative body, and the NPC Standing Committee to make a decision on whether the election methods need to be amended.

After Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying delivered a report on Hong Kong's constitutional development to the top legislature, the NPC standing Committee on August 31 made a decision which allows universal suffrage in selecting Hong Kong's chief executive from 2017 onward with two or three candidates nominated by a "broadly representative" nomination committee (NC).

After two rounds of public consultation since December 2013, the HKSAR government announced the package in the Legislative Council on April 22. In the package, the government suggested that the number of members of the NC would be 1,200, composed of four sectors with 300 members each. The NC will nominate two or three candidates and each candidate must have the endorsement of more than half of all the members of the NC.

All eligible electors of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) enjoy the right to vote in the election of the chief executive and may elect one of the candidates, and the chief executive-elect, after being selected through universal suffrage, will have to be appointed by the central government.

The HKSAR government said they would try to deliver the package to the Legislative Council to pass in June or July, which is also the third step of the process. The package should be endorsed by a two-thirds majority of all members of the Legislative Council. Endi