JUNE 12, 2014
As of 5 May 2014 when the government’s five-months consultation ended, Design Democracy Hong Kong (DDHK) received 592 submitted models concerning the system of electing the Chief Executive by universal suffrage. For those unfamiliar, DDHK is an online platform that allows users to complete a seven-part decision tree to design, post and share a universal suffrage model. It was launched one day before the government’s consultation. From the information provided by users, more than a quarter were between the ages of 21-25 and around 70% of users were between 18-35 years old. Three-quarters of participants were males. The system had no more safeguards than the government’s consultation to prevent multiple submissions. Many users wrote valuable comments to express their ideas. Unlike the government’s consultation, the DDHK system provided full transparency and any user could see and read the submitted models and comments of others.
The decision tree was composed of seven parts regarding the power to nominate candidates for the office of Chief Executive, the design of the Nominating Committee (including the composition and electorate base), the method for nominating Chief Executive candidates, how an election of Chief Executive should be conducted and the participant’s evaluation of his/her own model. It normally takes around 20 minutes to complete all the questions, quicker if questions are skipped. More thoughtful responses obviously reflected more time spent on the questions.. We covered more questions than in the government’s consultation.
Most submissions supported nomination by the People and a Nominating Committee (44.7%) and nomination by the People Only (40.9%). More than half (55.1%) supported a Nominating Committee of over 1,200 members. Three-quarters of all submissions (74.2%) supported using the general electorate to elect the members of the Nominating Committee.
The vast majority of submissions (81.4%) were against the practice of corporate voting. Three-quarters of all submissions (75.4%) believed that in order to become a Chief Executive candidate, a person should have to obtain a minimum number of nominations from the Nominating Committee members.
Most submissions (68.7%) did not think there should be a cap on the number of candidates. Most submissions (60.3%) believed that Nominating Committee members should not be allowed to nominate more than one person. The vast majority of submissions (79.2%) believed that the Chief Executive should be allowed to be a member of a political party. Most submissions (62.5%) supported a minimum voter turnout in an election of the Chief Executive. Most submissions (55.8%) opposed the first-past-the-post method in an election of the Chief Executive.
Some participants commented that we should focus our attention of realizing the attainable, i.e. the design of the Nominating Committee, based on Article 45 of the Basic Law to keep the nominating threshold low and to increase the representativeness of the Nominating Committee. Others believed the public should have the power of nomination in order to express the will of the people to a fuller extent, many also supported civil nomination. Some think that increasing the directly elected members would increase the representativeness of the Nominating Committee. On the other hand, some think that the focus should not be the size of the Nominating Committee but its method of election, composition and representativeness. Nevertheless, some believe that a large number of members would render a fairer result, which is more likely to be free of political maneuver and monopoly by powerful minority.
Regarding the design of the Nominating Committee, the government will want to pay attention to the following comments made by users: First, concerning its composition, the number of directly elected members should be increased. The current qualifications for sectors and subsectors are too limited in scope. The classification system may be changed and all subsectors may be eliminated to allow better coverage of citizens using the four sectors only. The composition should expand to all groups of professions and candidates have to complete a test on political knowledge in order to ensure that the committee is composed of educated members and that all of the citizens of Hong Kong are being represented. The current categories are concentrated in business and professional sectors and people with vested interests, ethnic minorities and grass-roots should be better represented. We should avoid allowing a small group of individuals to take up too great a proportion in the Nominating Committee and vice versa. The members of the Nominating Committee should have good public reputation to be nominated by universities in Hong Kong and citizens. Second, it is suggested the electorate base of the Nominating Committee should be increased, e.g. individual voters in the Legislative Council functional constituencies may be added to the existing electorate base in order to better reflect the people’s will. Third, corporate voting should be eliminated because it can be easily manipulated. This is also necessary to prevent unfairness of the election as well as the overriding political influence of big corporations and corruption. Even though not addressed in the government’s consultation, the government should also consider the option of civil nomination, the number of comments supporting that is not small.
With regard to the election details, supporters for secret ballot in nominating Chief Executive candidates argue that it can prevent peer pressure and persuasion. Supporters for public ballot argue that it is necessary to increase transparency. Some comment that the threshold of the number of nominations from the Nominating Committee members should be kept low to increase the options of candidates while others are concerned about election expenditures and quality of candidates. Most think that a cap on the number of nominated candidates is arbitrary and unnecessary as the threshold of the number of nominations in the Nominating Committee has already restricted the number of candidates. Many suggest that there should be an upper limit on the number of nominations in order not to curb competition. Most point out that the nominations by the Nominating Committee should be made public so as to put the nomination process under public scrutiny. The vast majority thinks the Chief Executive should be allowed to be a member of a political party, and some express doubts on the impartiality of the elected Chief Executive. While some support compulsory voting to generate high voter turnouts so as to increase the recognition of the election, others suggest that the government may make special compensations to boost voter turnouts, e.g. granting a half-day holiday.
Some suggest adopting a run-off system similar to that in France. Others comment that a first-past-the-post method of election may be used in general, but a run-off system may be used instead where a second round be held in case of a close race, e.g. when the difference between the first and the second is under ten percentage points. Regarding whether minimum proportion of votes cast is required, participants generally take into consideration of increasing the public recognition of the Chief Executive.
Although the sample size was small, we believe DDHK has elicited valuable public opinions that can contribute to the current political reform debate. We await to see if these results fairly reflect those of the much larger 100,000 plus sample received in the government’s consultation.
Professor Simon NM Young, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong. The full report is available on the Design Democracy Hong Kong (www.designdemocracy.hk) website.
From:http://harbourtimes.com/openpublish/article/design-democracy-hong-kong%E2%80%99s-first-report-universal-suffrage-models