Anson Chan still ready to talk about 2017 reform
Former chief secretary Anson Chan will not give up fighting for a fairer chief executive election in 2017 - even after pan-democratic lawmakers pledged to boycott a second round of public consultation.
Former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang will not give up fighting for a fairer chief executive election in 2017 - even after pan-democratic lawmakers pledged to boycott a second round of public consultation, expected to start next month.
But Chan, who chairs the pro-democracy group Hong Kong 2020, sympathised with frustrated lawmakers after Beijing set a strict framework for nominations when the city chooses its leader by one person, one vote for the first time. She said the new consultation must be "open and transparent" as Beijing's decision was "disappointing".
The National People's Congress Standing Committee ruled last month that only two or three candidates could run in 2017, and that they must win majority support from a 1,200-strong nominating committee. Pan-democrats vowed to veto any such reform in the Legislative Council.
"I am not surprised that people like Ronny Tong [Ka-wah] … have given up," she said, referring to the Civic Party lawmaker who put forward a moderate reform proposal. "I'm not prepared to give up because I think it's worth fighting for, but we must fight for the genuine stuff," such as making the committee, more representative. At present, most of its members are chosen by a few hundred thousand individual and corporate voters.
"When we do have some concrete proposals, I hope this time around, the Chief Secretary [Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor] would see fit to at least sit down with us and discuss," Chan added.
Still, Chan suggested it was not good enough for Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to say on the day of Beijing's decision that there was room for talks on matters such as the composition of the 38 subsectors represented on the committee.
"If they want to encourage constructive engagement … the government must do it transparently by telling the people of Hong Kong if there is any room for manoeuvre," Chan said. "The government [must] demonstrate to the people of Hong Kong why they should bother, given the first stage [of the consultation] has been such a sham. You cannot blame people for losing heart."
The government's initial five-month consultation ended in May. But Leung was criticised for a report to Beijing in which he stated that the exercise showed support for a nominating committee modelled on the 1,200-member election committee from the 2012 poll. The report also said "mainstream opinion" was against undermining the committee's right to nominate by giving the public a say.
The report was criticised for ignoring the opinions of 790,000 people who voted in an unofficial referendum weeks earlier in support of public nomination.
In a letter to Lam on Thursday, Chan warned that unless it was clear the new consultation "will yield substantive improvement" to the nominating committee's formation, "there will be no chance of securing constructive engagement" by pro-democracy groups, including hers.
And Chan dismissed the idea that accepting reform would lead to more open elections in future.
"Why should we [make do with] something that is patently fake democracy?" she asked.
