Post by Rose Tinted Lane on Jul 31, 2012 9:32:00 GMT
One of the elections I find most fascinating is coming up shortly: the Hong Kong legislative elections - the executive election was earlier this year and the local district elections were last year. I have spent some time in Hong Kong and have fond memories; the political situation there is quite simply unique – for all of you folks who suggest that the Lords could be the place to try having elected representatives from particular professional and interest groups, you could learn a lot from HK. Now I don’t claim to be an expert on the matter, but I will try to outline the basics of what will be going on come the 9th of September.
The first thing to remember is that since 1997 Hong Kong has been a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Along with Macao and Taiwan (or should that be Chinese Taipei?) these three regions make up the 'capitalist' element of China’s 'one county, two systems' policy. Thus, Hong Kong has a large degree of autonomy, representing itself in sporting events (as we have seen recently in the Olympics) and cedes only defence and foreign affairs to the PRC.
Hong Kong has lots of political parties, but they all split into the pro-Beijing camp and the pro-Democracy (sometimes pan-Democrat) camp. Neither side claims to be anti-Beijing or anti-Democracy of course, or if they do, then they do it quietly. I do recall reading an article a few years ago where Chinese regional-level politicians were complaining that the cost of bribing the electorate had gone up extortionately, which the Machiavellians among you will argue is the sort of story pushed in order to inculcate the Chinese people into believing that democracy is an inherently corrupt and 'foreign' philosophy, not in line with Chinese national values. But this has taken me off track…
So, similarly to the UK, Hong Kong operates a 'hybrid' government in terms of separation of legislative and executive functions. The head of government is the Chief Executive and is elected indirectly by an electoral college of 1200 voters known as the 'election committee' and serves a once-renewable 5 year term. I’ll come back to the 'election committee'.
The Chief Exec then appoints an Executive Council (commonly abbreviated to ExCo) from among senior legislative members, public officials and anyone the Chief Exec likes really. ExCo has 30 members, which consists of:
• 1 Chief Exec
• 15 Ministers
• 14 non-official Members
Perhaps amusingly, ExCo 'meets on Tuesdays'.
The Legislative Council (LegCo, naturally) will consist of 70 members, is the unicameral legislature and serves 4 year terms. 35 of the seats are directly elected from geographical constituencies by universal suffrage, while the other 35 are indirectly elected from 'functional constituencies'. This is something of a constitutional stitch-up – any glance at the previous election results will show that the pro-Democracy camp usually win the geographical seats 2:1 and the pro-Beijing camp tend to win the functional constituencies by something like 8:1. This usually ends up with something like a 35/65 split in favour of the pro-Beijingers.
It is also worth pointing out that the upcoming elections differ from previous years as there have recently been contentious and, for the pro-Democracy camp at least, disappointingly weak changes to the constitution (in the previous Council, there were only 60 seats and so on). Also, it is important for HK democracy that neither of these camps falls below one third of the total number of members, as this offers an effective veto over constitutional amendments. A two thirds majority can veto acts of the chief executive, but I am not sure this has ever been used. The LegCo appears to be semi-legislative, in the same sense that the European Parliament isn’t really a sovereign body – it needs approval from the commission. ExCo approval is a prerequisite of LegCo legislation becoming law.
The 35 geographical members of the LegCo are elected by party-list PR in each of the 5 constituencies (Largest Remainder Method/Hare Quota for the anoraks).
Where it gets interesting is the functional constituencies. 1 member represents and is elected only by District Councillors (bottom tier government) and 5 other members have to come from among these 507 District Councillors and receive the nominations of at least 15 other district councillors to stand. Those 5 are then elected by PR-list, by every elector in Hong Kong who is not already in another functional constituency (making them almost, if not de jure, directly elected).
A simple plurality system (what we might call FPTP) is used for all of the remaining functional constituencies, with an eligible voter casting one vote only. The exceptions are the Labour FC in which a voter may cast up to three votes, and the 'Heung Yee Kuk', Agriculture and Fisheries, Insurance, and Transport FCs where a preferential elimination system is used due to the small number of voters.
The 'Heung Yee Kuk' is particularly worthy of mention in that it is itself a committee made up of the chairs of the 27 'rural committees' of the New Territories region of Hong Kong. How those chairs are allocated (election, appointment), I don’t know I’m afraid.
Also, the question of District Councillors being nominated for the LegCo – I don’t know if there are any rules about having to step down if their term in the District Councils runs out, or if they even have to be an elected member of the District Councils:
• 412 are returned by direct election
• 27 are the members of the Heung Yee Kuk
• 68 are appointed members by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong
So yes, the Chief Exec gets to directly appoint 68 of the 507 members of the district councils – presumably they can then nominate and stand for the LegCo, but I would need clarification on this.
The Heung Yee Kuk has managed to secure itself another route to power and influence by these ex-officio seats on the DCs. Interestingly, in the latest constitutional document, it is forbidden for members of the Kuk to stand or vote in the District Council section of the FCs. This is probably due to the manoeuvre pulled by the billionaire Chair of the Kuk in 2004, where he stood and won the (then only 1 seat) DC section of the functional committees in order to essentially 'double up' the number of members of the Kuk on the LegCo.
Finally, the election committee to elect a chief executive consists of a great number of functional constituencies, with electors elected by their peers within the professions. While they are largely professionally based, there are some real crackers. While Transport gets 18 votes for example, practitioners of 'Chinese Medicine' receive 60 votes. Check some of these out:
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference 55
Employers' Federation of HK 16
HK and Kowloon District Councils 59
New Territories District Councils 62
HK Chinese Enterprises Association 16
Chinese National People's Congress 36
Legislative Council 60
Religious 60
Which means that by the looks of things, some of the people who elect (or re-elect) the Chief Exec are also either directly appointed by the Chief Exec, or directly controlled from Beijing. The ubiquitous Heung Yee Kuk of course gets its 28 votes in this section too.
So finally, will the pan-Democrats pick up a few extra seats thanks to the newly modified constitution, where every elector in Hong Kong now gets to vote in both a geographic and a functional constituency? Or will the passing of a relatively weak set of reforms by the 'moderate' wing of the pan-Democrats in conjunction with the government put the people off the pro-Democracy strain of thought and firmly back into the pro-Beijing camp?
My personal prediction – 30 seats for the pan-Democrats would be a good result for them at this point.
The first thing to remember is that since 1997 Hong Kong has been a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Along with Macao and Taiwan (or should that be Chinese Taipei?) these three regions make up the 'capitalist' element of China’s 'one county, two systems' policy. Thus, Hong Kong has a large degree of autonomy, representing itself in sporting events (as we have seen recently in the Olympics) and cedes only defence and foreign affairs to the PRC.
Hong Kong has lots of political parties, but they all split into the pro-Beijing camp and the pro-Democracy (sometimes pan-Democrat) camp. Neither side claims to be anti-Beijing or anti-Democracy of course, or if they do, then they do it quietly. I do recall reading an article a few years ago where Chinese regional-level politicians were complaining that the cost of bribing the electorate had gone up extortionately, which the Machiavellians among you will argue is the sort of story pushed in order to inculcate the Chinese people into believing that democracy is an inherently corrupt and 'foreign' philosophy, not in line with Chinese national values. But this has taken me off track…
So, similarly to the UK, Hong Kong operates a 'hybrid' government in terms of separation of legislative and executive functions. The head of government is the Chief Executive and is elected indirectly by an electoral college of 1200 voters known as the 'election committee' and serves a once-renewable 5 year term. I’ll come back to the 'election committee'.
The Chief Exec then appoints an Executive Council (commonly abbreviated to ExCo) from among senior legislative members, public officials and anyone the Chief Exec likes really. ExCo has 30 members, which consists of:
• 1 Chief Exec
• 15 Ministers
• 14 non-official Members
Perhaps amusingly, ExCo 'meets on Tuesdays'.
The Legislative Council (LegCo, naturally) will consist of 70 members, is the unicameral legislature and serves 4 year terms. 35 of the seats are directly elected from geographical constituencies by universal suffrage, while the other 35 are indirectly elected from 'functional constituencies'. This is something of a constitutional stitch-up – any glance at the previous election results will show that the pro-Democracy camp usually win the geographical seats 2:1 and the pro-Beijing camp tend to win the functional constituencies by something like 8:1. This usually ends up with something like a 35/65 split in favour of the pro-Beijingers.
It is also worth pointing out that the upcoming elections differ from previous years as there have recently been contentious and, for the pro-Democracy camp at least, disappointingly weak changes to the constitution (in the previous Council, there were only 60 seats and so on). Also, it is important for HK democracy that neither of these camps falls below one third of the total number of members, as this offers an effective veto over constitutional amendments. A two thirds majority can veto acts of the chief executive, but I am not sure this has ever been used. The LegCo appears to be semi-legislative, in the same sense that the European Parliament isn’t really a sovereign body – it needs approval from the commission. ExCo approval is a prerequisite of LegCo legislation becoming law.
The 35 geographical members of the LegCo are elected by party-list PR in each of the 5 constituencies (Largest Remainder Method/Hare Quota for the anoraks).
Where it gets interesting is the functional constituencies. 1 member represents and is elected only by District Councillors (bottom tier government) and 5 other members have to come from among these 507 District Councillors and receive the nominations of at least 15 other district councillors to stand. Those 5 are then elected by PR-list, by every elector in Hong Kong who is not already in another functional constituency (making them almost, if not de jure, directly elected).
A simple plurality system (what we might call FPTP) is used for all of the remaining functional constituencies, with an eligible voter casting one vote only. The exceptions are the Labour FC in which a voter may cast up to three votes, and the 'Heung Yee Kuk', Agriculture and Fisheries, Insurance, and Transport FCs where a preferential elimination system is used due to the small number of voters.
The 'Heung Yee Kuk' is particularly worthy of mention in that it is itself a committee made up of the chairs of the 27 'rural committees' of the New Territories region of Hong Kong. How those chairs are allocated (election, appointment), I don’t know I’m afraid.
Also, the question of District Councillors being nominated for the LegCo – I don’t know if there are any rules about having to step down if their term in the District Councils runs out, or if they even have to be an elected member of the District Councils:
• 412 are returned by direct election
• 27 are the members of the Heung Yee Kuk
• 68 are appointed members by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong
So yes, the Chief Exec gets to directly appoint 68 of the 507 members of the district councils – presumably they can then nominate and stand for the LegCo, but I would need clarification on this.
The Heung Yee Kuk has managed to secure itself another route to power and influence by these ex-officio seats on the DCs. Interestingly, in the latest constitutional document, it is forbidden for members of the Kuk to stand or vote in the District Council section of the FCs. This is probably due to the manoeuvre pulled by the billionaire Chair of the Kuk in 2004, where he stood and won the (then only 1 seat) DC section of the functional committees in order to essentially 'double up' the number of members of the Kuk on the LegCo.
Finally, the election committee to elect a chief executive consists of a great number of functional constituencies, with electors elected by their peers within the professions. While they are largely professionally based, there are some real crackers. While Transport gets 18 votes for example, practitioners of 'Chinese Medicine' receive 60 votes. Check some of these out:
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference 55
Employers' Federation of HK 16
HK and Kowloon District Councils 59
New Territories District Councils 62
HK Chinese Enterprises Association 16
Chinese National People's Congress 36
Legislative Council 60
Religious 60
Which means that by the looks of things, some of the people who elect (or re-elect) the Chief Exec are also either directly appointed by the Chief Exec, or directly controlled from Beijing. The ubiquitous Heung Yee Kuk of course gets its 28 votes in this section too.
So finally, will the pan-Democrats pick up a few extra seats thanks to the newly modified constitution, where every elector in Hong Kong now gets to vote in both a geographic and a functional constituency? Or will the passing of a relatively weak set of reforms by the 'moderate' wing of the pan-Democrats in conjunction with the government put the people off the pro-Democracy strain of thought and firmly back into the pro-Beijing camp?
My personal prediction – 30 seats for the pan-Democrats would be a good result for them at this point.
