Hong Kong - More than 70 per cent of Hong Kong people are
happy to wait another decade for free elections after Beijing ruled
there can be no universal suffrage until 2017, according to a survey
Tuesday.
A poll by the city's Chinese University learned 72.2 per cent
found it acceptable to wait until 2017 to have free elections for the
position of chief executive and 2020 to directly elect all
legislators.
Only 21.4 per cent of the 900 interviewees said they found
Beijing's timetable for universal suffrage, announced just before the
New Year, as unacceptable, despite widespread protests from the
city's pro-democracy movement.
China's National People's Congress announced the outline timetable
for democracy at the end of December after six months of public
consultation over constitutional reform in the former British colony.
Before the announcement, repeated polls indicated a majority of
Hong Kong people wanted universal suffrage by 2012, when the next
election for chief executive is due to be held.
However, Hong Kong's surging prosperity and booming stock market
appears to have blunted the desire for democracy which in 2003 and
2004 brought crowds of 500,000 onto the streets.
Hong Kong is technically entitled to universal suffrage from 2007
under the terms of the mini-constitution by which it has been ruled
since reverting to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
China, however, has repeatedly insisted that the introduction of
democracy must be gradual and orderly and says the city of 6.9
million is not yet mature enough for universal suffrage.
Currently, only half of Hong Kong's 60 legislators are directly
elected and the chief executive is chosen by an 800-member, largely
pro-Beijing election committee.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story