BEIJING – China has approved Hong Kong’s controversial reform of the electoral system, giving Beijing veto power over the selection of candidates in order to ensure that only candidates deemed suitable (the so-called “patriots”) rule the city.
The passage of the reform was reported by the agency Xinhua, at the end of the meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the top of the legislative body of the Chinese Parliament, and the modification of the electoral system was promulgated in two different orders signed by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
The approved changes to the electoral system concern the method of selecting Hong Kong’s chief executive, the city’s highest authority, the method of forming the Legislative Council, the mini-parliament, and its voting procedures. According to the Committee’s sole Hong Kong delegate, Tam Yiu-chung, quoted from South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s electoral system reform plan was unanimously approved by the body’s 167 members.
“Only patriots in government”: this is how Beijing changes Hong Kong’s electoral system
La leader di Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, he defended the reform, stating that anyone who meets the criterion of patriot, even if a member of the opposition, will be able to stand for election. Candidates must comply with the requirements of adherence to the Basic Law, which regulates the relationship between the former colony and China, and abide by the national security law imposed by Beijing last June (which shut down the city’s pro-democracy movements) . “For those with different political beliefs”, concluded Lam quoted by the broadcaster of Hong Kong Rthk, “whether they are more democratic or more conservative, if they meet these basic requirements, I don’t see why they can’t stand for election.”
In detail, according to what is reported by the Scmp, the new law provides that the Electoral Commission – which selects the chief executive, the highest office in the city – is guaranteed the possibility of choosing forty members of the Legislative Council, the mini-parliament of Hong Kong, which increases the number from seventy to ninety. of its components. At the same time, however, the number of directly elected parliamentarians decreased sharply from 35 to twenty, while the members cast by the constituencies of the corporations, with a majority pro-Beijing, will make up a third of the Legislative Council, for a total of thirty seats.
Furthermore, the Electoral Commission is expanding from 1,200 current members, by another three hundred: among the new members there will be members of the pro-Beijing groups and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the political advisors of Beijing, further strengthening the pro-Beijing camp. China. As widely expected, however, the 117 Electoral Commission seats allocated to district councils, now largely in the hands of pro-democracy groups, have been eliminated.
It remains to be clarified the number of members of the Commission that will have to screen the candidates for Parliament or the Electoral Commission, to ensure that they do not pose a threat to national security, the subject of an ad hoc law imposed by Beijing last year and which put an end to the protests. pro-democracy in the city.
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