The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government Saturday outlined to the Legislative Council (LegCo) Panel on Constitutional Affairs the proposed arrangements regarding the methods for selecting the Chief Executive (CE) and for forming the LegCo in 2012.

"The proposals greatly enhance the democratic elements in our electoral system. They are in conformity with the Basic Law, the decision by the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress (NPCSC) in December, 2007, and the amendments to Annexes I and II to the Basic Law which were approved or recorded by the NPCSC in August 2010," a government spokesman said on Saturday.

Five of the additional 10 seats for the LegCo in 2012 will be returned by Geographical Constituencies (GCs) and the other five by Functional Constituencies (FCs). According to the government's proposal, the number of GCs will be retained at five in returning the 35 GC Members. The five new FC seats will form a new District Council (DC) FC.

Only elected DC members can nominate and become candidates in the new DC FC. Candidates must be nominated by no less than 15 elected DC members. Candidates will be elected by approximately 3. 2 million electors who currently do not have the right to vote in other FCs on a one-person-one-vote basis.

Proportional representation list system will be adopted in the new DC FC to ensure balanced participation by different political parties.

In respect of the new DC FC, the maximum amount of election expenses that can be received by a list of candidates will be 6 million HK dollars (about $773,495). The financial assistance provided by the government is the lower of either the amount obtained by multiplying the total number of valid votes cast for the list of candidates by 12 HK dollars or 50 percent of their declared election expenses.

"For the Chief Executive Election, the Election Committee (EC) will be expanded in accordance with the principle of balanced participation. There will be more opportunities for members of different sectors to participate in the coming election," the spokesman added.

The number of members in the EC will be increased from 800 to 1, 200. The number of seats in the four sectors will each be increased by 100. According to the government's proposal, no new subsector will be added in the first, second and third sector. The number of seats allocated to the existing 32 subsectors in these three sectors will be increased by proportion according to the existing distribution of seats.

Of the 100 new seats for the fourth sector of the EC, 75 seats will be allocated to the DC subsectors. The DC subsectors will have 117 seats and will maintain the existing arrangement of grouping into two subsectors (one for urban area and the other for the New Territories) and retain the current "bloc vote system".

Only elected DC members can register as voters, nominate candidates and be nominated as candidates in the DC subsectors. There will be a total of 117 elected DC members in the EC. This helps enhance the democratic elements of the EC.

"We plan to introduce into the LegCo the CE Election (Amendment) Bill and the LegCo (Amendment) Bill in a few weeks. We hope that the LegCo could pass the bills as soon as possible next year to provide sufficient time for preparing the 2011 EC subsector elections, and the arrangements for the subsequent elections," the spokesman said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2010)