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A four-week voter registration campaign under the nomination exercise for arts representatives for the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) will start tomorrow (June 29) and close on July 30.
Under the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Ordinance, the Chief Executive may appoint up to 10 people nominated by the specified arts interests to be HKADC members. As the current term of office of HKADC members will expire on December 31, the Government has launched a nomination exercise for arts interest representatives in the new term.
The first phase of the nomination exercise - registration of members for the nominating bodies of the respective arts interests - was completed on June 5.
ˇ§Now that the nomination exercise has moved into its second phase -- the voter registration phase -- we hope that arts organisations registered as members of nominating bodies will help their members register as early as possible to avoid last-minute rush,ˇ¨ a Home Affairs Bureau spokesman said.
This year, 185 individual arts workers and 231 arts organisations were newly registered as members of the arts interest nominating bodies, bringing the total number to 1,183, comprising 640 individual arts workers and 543 arts organisations. This is a substantial increase of about 54% over the figure of 768 in 2004. A full list of the members of the specified nominating bodies will be published in the gazette tomorrow.
Commenting on the registration in the first phase of the nomination exercise, the spokesman said the Government was pleased with the overwhelming response from the arts community this year. "The increase reflects the rising interest of arts organisations as well as individual arts workers in taking a more active part in the development of the local arts scene,ˇ¨ he said.
The individual arts workers specified in the gazette will automatically qualify as voters and need not register again in this phase. The arts organisations specified in the gazette must help their members register as voters in order to enable them to take part in the subsequent phases of the nomination exercise. Arts organisations registered as members of nominating bodies in 2004 or before must submit fresh voter registration forms of their members.
All voters will have the right to nominate candidates, seek candidature and cast votes in the poll to be held later this year. Voters will nominate one representative each from the 10 specified arts interests of arts administration, arts criticism, arts education, Chinese opera (Xiqu), dance, drama, film arts, literary arts, music and visual arts. A list of the nominated representatives will be submitted to the Chief Executive for consideration of appointment to the HKADC in the next term.
The bureau has commissioned PR Concepts Company Limited to be the nomination agent for this nomination exercise. Specified arts organisations will receive from the nomination agent voter-registration and candidate-nomination guidelines and application forms, while specified individual arts workers will receive voter-notification letters, candidate-nomination guidelines and application forms.
Those who do not receive these materials by July 6 may contact the nomination agent on 2520 2857 or by fax: 2527 8996. They can also download the relevant guidelines and forms from the Home Affairs Bureau website: http://www.hab.gov.hk.
Since the establishment of the HKADC as a statutory body in June 1995, it has undergone nomination exercises for arts representatives in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2004, with this year marking the sixth such occasion.
Ends/Thursday, June 28, 2007
Issued at HKT 18:39
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