Package of Proposals for the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2012

Transcript of SCMA's remarks at a media session

Following is the transcript (English portion) of remarks by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, at a media session after attending a radio programme this morning (October 31):

Reporter: Will the number of District Councillors needed to nominate a candidate be moved down from 15 to 10?

Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: I would say that in the course of summer, we have received various proposals regarding the practical arrangements for arranging the election of the new District Council functional constituency seats. We now have a total of five new seats to be returned by 3.2 million registered voters. We are proposing a nomination threshold of 15 elected District Councillors. This means that for a list of five candidates on average, each candidate only needs to have three nominations. This is significantly below the current nomination threshold of 10 nominations for a candidate to join any particular functional constituency election. So this very low threshold would enable different political parties and also independent candidates to take part in this election.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Sunday, October 31, 2010