HK chief warns against new protests
Print Edition
HONG Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying yesterday warned against fresh protests ahead of the next step in the city’s political reform process, saying the authorities would not bow to “coercive action.”
Today, the government will launch a second round of public consultation on the process for electing the city’s next chief executive.
Hong Kong will be able to choose its own leader for the first time in 2017.
China’s top legislature has ruled that candidates will be nominated by an election committee — a decision that sparked more than two months of Occupy Central rallies.
The new consultation will be the first official reform exercise since the authorities cleared the main protest camps in December.
Leung reiterated that any voting system would stick to the framework laid down by the National People’s Congress.
“If we really want to implement universal suffrage in 2017, we ... should not do anything that threatens the Hong Kong government or the central government,” Leung told reporters.
He said that the process must stick to the city’s constitution and that “coercive actions that are illegal or disrupt social order” would not change anything.
The public should take a “legal, rational and pragmatic” approach in expressing opinions, he added.
The NPC ruling in August required all leadership candidates to be nominated.
That decision was made after the Hong Kong government sent a report to the central government following the first round of consultation.
The new round of consultation is expected to put forward specific proposals on mechanisms to select candidates.
Leung said it would be “less broad,” without giving details.
The State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office yesterday called for peaceful and legal expression of opinions in Hong Kong, saying the rule of law as Hong Kong’s core value must be safeguarded.
The remarks came after the Hong Kong government submitted a report on the recent social and political conditions in the region to the office.
“Hong Kong is a society ruled by law,” a spokesman said, “Everyone should express their appeals in a peaceful and legal way to safeguard this core value.”
The office was aware of recent developments in Hong Kong, the spokesman stated, adding that reporting to the central government is an obligation of the chief executive under the Basic Law.
“We hope all circles in Hong Kong can engage in rational and pragmatic discussions and build consensus within the boundaries of the Basic Law and decisions adopted by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, so as to realize universal suffrage in the election of the region’s chief executive as scheduled,” he said, reiterating that the central government supported democratic development in Hong Kong in accordance with law.
The decision by the NPC Standing Committee was in line with the Constitution and the Basic Law and has heeded opinion from all walks of life in Hong Kong, thus, had “unshakable” legal status.
The NPC decision granted universal suffrage in selection of the chief executive on the basis of nomination by a “broadly representative” committee.
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