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Following is the transcript of a reply to the media by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Raymond Tam, in Beijing tonight (March 2):
Reporter: What do you think about the suggestion from DAB (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong) about the political reform?
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: They have submitted their proposal today. I have spotted three main elements. First, they proposed to lower the entry requirement to one-tenth of the Nominating Committee. The second point is that they see no need for introducing a recommendation cap. Thirdly, they recommended that there should only be one round of "one-man, one-vote" general election instead of two rounds. And therefore they proposed "first-past-the-vote" as the electoral system for the universal suffrage election of the CE (Chief Executive).
We have initially exchanged views at the meeting earlier today. Our tentative view is that for lowering the entry requirement, for the various submissions that we have received from sectors of the community, most of them who proposed lowering the entry requirement would propose the threshold of 100 instead of 120 as proposed by DAB. The second point (of) not to have any election recommendation cap, DAB mentioned at the meeting that they would not object to such an introduction but rather they see no practical need in reality because they said maybe we do not need to rely on that to provide a sufficient pool of candidates for the Nominating Committee. Last but not the least, they proposed a single round of election, "one-man, one-vote". The main reason is having regard to the practical timetable. To us, it is helpful to shorten the time but at the same time, at the principle perspective, (should or) should we not allow the CE-elect to enjoy an absolute majority of all the valid votes so that the political legitimacy for the CE-elect would be sufficient to allow him/her to have a better commencement of his/her term? Of course, we are still at the public consultation stage. We would carefully exam each and every proposal. Hopefully some time in April, we would come forward with the Government's proposal.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Monday, March 2, 2015
Issued at HKT 23:40
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