Electing Hong Kong's Chief Executive

1 - Introduction

1 Introduction This book is about how the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) chooses its most powerful political leader, the Chief Executive (CE). On 25 March 2007, almost a decade after the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to China, the HKSAR held its first ever contested election for CE. The body that elected the CE, known as the Election Committee (EC), comprised just 800 individuals.1 The pool of registered electors eligible to vote into office most of the EC members was made up of 220,307 individuals and corporations, representing only 6.84% of the 2004 Legislative Council (LegCo) registered electorate. The outcome of the 2007 election was a foregone conclusion from the outset, but it was significant that the restricted electoral system allowed a prodemocracy legislator to obtain enough nominations to contest (albeit barely) the election. Prior to 1 July 1997, it would have been anomalous to speak of Hong Kong having any “choice” in determining who its political leader would be. The choice of Governor, being the Queen’s representative in the British colony, was made by the Queen on the advice of her ministers, usually the British Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.2 There was no formal process of local elections or consultations preceding the appointment. After China’s resumption of sovereignty in 1997, the office of Chief Executive of the HKSAR came into being along with a new process that gave Hong Kong people, 1. Only 664 of the 800 EC members are elected to office. Ninety-six seats are ex-officio political seats reserved for all of the members of the LegCo and Hong Kong deputies to the NPCSC. Another 40 seats are filled by nominations by specified religious groups. Hong Kong’s population in mid-2007 was 6.9259 million, see “Hong Kong: The Facts” in Hong Kong Yearbook 2007, accessible at www.yearbook.gov.hk. 2. Harris, Peter, Public Administration & Public Affairs in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Heinemann Asia, 1983) 48. 2 Electing Hong Kong’s Chief Executive for the first time, a say in selecting the CE. This change flowed from the “one country, two systems” concept used to define the Central Authorities’ relationship with its special administrative regions. The promise of a “high degree of autonomy” for Hong Kong meant that it would have a measure of control over its political affairs. As early as 1984, in the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong, it was known that after 1997 there would be a Hong Kong-based process of selecting the CE “by election or through consultations” before final appointment by the Central People’s Government.3 During the five-year drafting process of Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law, leading to its promulgation in 1990, an electoral method of using a 800-member EC to nominate and elect the CE was adopted.4 This committee was to be constituted using the system of functional constituencies (FCs) which had been introduced in 1985 by the British to elect a minority of Legislative Council members.Although China retained what it considered a “substantive” power to appoint the CE,5 it also enjoyed significant influence at the selection stage through the FCs’business and profession-based representatives who typically share common economic and political interests with China.6 The office of CE is as unique as the system used to fill the office. Unlike former Governors who served as the Queen’s representative, the CE is not the representative of the Chinese President or Central Authorities in Hong Kong.7 The Basic Law provides that the CE shall represent the HKSAR as head of the HKSAR (Article 43). It also provides that the CE is head of the Government of the HKSAR (Article 60). Having this dual leadership role also makes the office of CE distinct from the governors and other leaders of Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, all of whom are regarded as only heads of their local government but not heads of their respective administrative region. Compared to such leaders, the CE, as head of the HKSAR, enjoys greater autonomous powers, such as powers to nominate principal officials for Chinese appointment, pardon offenders and appoint judges.8 3. Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong, 19 December 1984, Annex I, Section I...