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In response to some overseas media reports on the remarks made by the Chief Executive, Mr C Y Leung, yesterday (October 20) on the composition of the Nominating Committee, the Chief Executive's Office today (October 21) issued the following statement:
"There has been much comment about the Chief Executive's remarks to some overseas media yesterday (October 20) on what is meant by a 'broadly representative' Nominating Committee for the election of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage. Once again we must look to the Basic Law to provide the broader context and the legal reality.
"Hong Kong has a constitutional requirement to form a 'broadly representative' Nominating Committee as part of the process to elect the Chief Executive by universal suffrage. This has been in the Basic Law since 1990.
"Within this constitutional and legal framework, 'broadly representative' is not just a question of absolute numbers; it is also a question of taking into account the needs and priorities of a broad range of sectors as much as we can. By taking our lead from the current 1,200-member Election Committee we can see this includes a diverse range of sub-sectors such as catering, finance, import and export, transport, legal, medical, education, social welfare, agriculture and fisheries, sports and performing arts, religious groups and political representatives. At the briefing yesterday, the Chief Executive referred to the importance of these sectors, despite the fact that some of them are very small.
"The Chief Executive also shared his campaign experience to point out that any potential Chief Executive candidates must, therefore, spend time and energy trying to cultivate support in as many of these sub-sectors as possible to satisfy the requirement of being nominated by a 'broadly representative' group. Of course, any nominated candidate in a universal suffrage election in Hong Kong will have to win the greatest number of votes to be elected."
Ends/Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Issued at HKT 18:53
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