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《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Talks as Leung warns free poll would empower poor

Pro-democracy protesters watch talks between student protest leaders and officials on a video screen near the government headquarters in Hong Kong last night.
Photo: Reuters

Pro-democracy protesters watch talks between student protest leaders and officials on a video screen near the government headquarters in Hong Kong last night. Photo: Reuters

2014/10/22 03:00

/ AFP, HONG KONG

Hong Kong authorities and pro-democracy protesters yesterday held their first talks aimed at ending weeks of rallies that have paralysed parts of the territory, after its leader ruled out major reforms.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), in an interview late on Monday, said open elections for his successor as demanded by demonstrators would result in the largest sector of society — the territory’s poor — dominating the electoral process.

However, hours before the talks began, he raised the prospect of limited reforms — offering protesters an olive branch after more than three weeks of rallies and roadblocks in the financial hub. Several major intersections in the semi-autonomous southern Chinese territory have been paralyzed since Sept. 28 by mass rallies demanding free elections, in one of the biggest challenges to Beijing’s authority since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of 1989.

“I hope this dialogue can calm the relatively tense atmosphere in society,” Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said in her opening remarks yesterday as the talks got under way at a medical college.

As part of promised constitutional reforms, China has offered Hong Kongers the chance to vote — for the first time — for their next chief executive in 2017. However, only those vetted by a 1,200-strong committee loyal to Beijing will be allowed to stand for election — a proposal activists have labeled a “fake” democracy.

Under the current system the committee directly elects the leader.

“When 5 million eligible voters directly vote for the chief executive through one-person-one-vote, no matter which way you look at it, it is much more democratic than having the leader chosen by a 1,200-strong committee,” Lam added.

“The government’s direction of development ... is not democratic, equal, open and is not an improvement,” said Alex Chow Yong Kang (周永康), secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the groups leading the protests.

Chow, wearing a black T-shirt with the words “Freedom now” and accompanied by four other student leaders, demanded that the public should have the right to nominate candidates for the 2017 chief executive election.

“The Hong Kong people’s demands for the city’s future constitutional development are very simple — civil nominations. We dont want pre-selected candidates,” Chow said.

However, Lam said Hong Kong must work within the framework provided by Beijing.

“Hong Kong is not an independent country; it cannot decide its political system on its own,” she said.

Leung, in an interview yesterday afternoon with Agence France-Presse and other media, said he was open to creating a more democratic committee to vet candidates for his successor.

He said that while Beijing would not back down on vetting his successor, the committee tasked with selecting those candidates could become “more democratic.”

The offer is still a long way from meeting the core demands of protesters, but Leung’s comments were the first indication of a potential negotiating point.

Prior to the talks, Leung said open elections would result in the territory’s many poor dominating politics, as he ruled out democratic reforms.

In an interview with foreign media, carried in the Wall Street Journal and the International New York Times hours before talks were due to start, Leung said free elections were impossible.

Leung, whose resignation protesters have demanded, said if leadership candidates were nominated by the public then the largest sector of society — the poor — would likely dominate the electoral process.

“If it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you’d be talking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than US$1,800 a month,” he said in the interview.

The protests are taking place against a backdrop of rising inequality and soaring housing costs that leave many young people with little prospect of renting, let alone buying, their own homes in a city with one of Asia’s widest wealth gaps.

新聞來源:TAIPEI TIMES

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