[The protests began last August after the Chinese government passed an edict that would allow the public to vote for the city’s leader, or chief executive, starting 2017 — but under rules that limit candidates to those endorsed by a Beijing-friendly committee. Since Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997, the chief executive has been chosen by the committee, made up of less than 1,200 voters, and that method would continue to be used if the proposed changes do not pass.]
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Protesters
in Hong Kong on Sunday pressed lawmakers to block Beijing’s
plan for the
next election to choose the city’s top official. Credit Dale De
La
Rey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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HONG KONG — Thousands of
people returned on Sunday to streets nearHong
Kong government
headquarters — the site last year of months of student-led protests for freer
elections — hoping to press lawmakers to block Beijing’s plan for selecting the
city’s top official in 2017.
In contrast with the hope for change, however small, that pervaded
the early days of the protests last year, the protesters on Sunday said they
did not hold out hope for last-minute concessions from Beijing or the Hong Kong
government. Instead, they called on the pro-democracy members of the
legislature to vote down the plan, as they have repeatedly promised they would.
“We know that Beijing will not budge,” said Nathan Law, leader
of the Federation of Students, a leading student group in the protests last
year, which blocked major roads around government offices and in other key
districts in the city of seven million. “We’re here to tell the legislators to
keep to their promises and veto the proposal.”
The
protests began last August after the Chinese government passed an edict that
would allow the public to vote for the city’s leader, or chief executive,
starting 2017 — but under rules that limit candidates to those endorsed by a
Beijing-friendly committee. Since Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese
rule in 1997, the chief executive has been chosen by the committee, made up of
less than 1,200 voters, and that method would continue to be used if the
proposed changes do not pass.
A bill that would turn Beijing’s plan into local laws will be
presented to the Hong Kong Legislative Council on Wednesday, with a vote
expected shortly after.
The vote this week will end months of political debate over
whether to accept what critics of the plan see as a failure to provide what
they call a meaningful “one person, one vote” election. On Friday, a widely
cited poll on the proposed changes conducted by three Hong Kong universities
showed for the first time that the number of respondents opposed to the plan
exceeded those in favor of it, by a two percentage-point margin, which likely
falls within the poll’s marginof sampling error.
The poll, conducted on a rolling basis since
late April by the University of Hong Kong, Polytechnic University and the
Chinese University of Hong Kong, includes about 1,000 respondents and has a
margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
To get the two-thirds majority in the Legislative Council needed
to pass the proposal into law, the Hong Kong government needs to coax at least
four of the pro-democratic legislators to vote for it. In talks leading up to
the vote so far, the government has failed to convince even one of them to
change their mind.
“If the bill is passed somehow miraculously, there will be huge
demonstrations and possibly very ugly clashes with the police,” said Willy
Wo-Lap Lam, a history and China Studies professor at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong.
In light of the possible confrontations, officials have put up
metal fences around the entrances to the Legislative Council’s building. On
Saturday, the police confiscated wood, nails and glass bottles from the dozens
of protest tents that still remain standing near the government buildings to
prevent those items from being used as weapons by “radicals” during protests
this week.
“Police will not tolerate any violent and illegal behavior and
will take resolute actions to restore public order,” Cheung Tak-keung,
Assistant Commissioner of Police, said in a press briefing on Friday.
As the vote nears and polls suggest waning public support for
the proposal, Beijing has shown no sign of yielding to the protesters’ demands.
On the other hand, three top Beijing officials overseeing Hong Kong affairs
told legislators last month that their “principles and bottom lines are
unwavering.”
That includes the requirement that voters could only choose from
among two or three candidates approved by the nominating committee.
“The position has been made extremely clear by the central
authorities as well as the Hong Kong government,” Carrie Lam, the No. 2
official in the Hong Kong government, told reporters on Sunday morning. “I
don’t think there is any last-minute concession that could be made.”
The police estimated that at its peak, the event on Sunday drew
more than 3,100 people.
Lee Wai-kai, a retired high school teacher who was among the
protesters on Sunday, said that it was the Hong Kong government’s
responsibility to present a satisfactory election plan, and, until then, “We
can only keep pressuring the government.”
Crystal
Tse contributed reporting.
