HONG KONG ELECTORS CHOOSE CHIEF EXECUTIVE ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HONG KONG 004690

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NOFORN
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DEPARTMENT FOR EAP, EAP/CM
NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/08/2031
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR SOCI CH HK
SUBJECT: HONG KONG ELECTORS CHOOSE CHIEF EXECUTIVE ELECTION
COMMITTEE

REF: A. HONG KONG 4207


B. HONG KONG 3872

Classified By: Acting DPO Laurent Charbonnet; Reasons 1.4 (b, d)


1. (C) Summary: On December 10, a small minority of Hong
Kong citizens will select the 800-member Chief Executive (CE)
Election Committee, which next March will elect a CE to serve
from 2007 to 2012. Incumbent CE Donald Tsang almost
certainly will be reelected for a five-year term in March
2007, although he has yet to announce his candidacy; the only
relevant questions are whether his sole declared opponent,
pro-democracy Civic Party legislator Alan Leong, will reach
the 100-nomination threshold required to contest the election
in March, and to what extent the central government in
Beijing might attempt to influence the electoral process. It
remains unclear whether Leong will be successful; even if his
supporters win more than 100 Election Committee seats, there
is no guarantee that he can maintain that level of support
through next March. A subsequent cable will examine election
issues and prospects in more detail. End Summary.


2. (C) Comment: Beijing's activities to date have been
exceedingly subtle and low-key; even democratic activists are
hard-pressed to give concrete examples of Beijing's meddling,
even in confidence. We expect that Beijing is biding its
time and will be looking to see the complexion of the
800-member Election Committee elected on Sunday. If Alan
Leong supporters should manage to capture a
larger-than-expected number of seats in the Committee,
Beijing may very well decide to increase pressure on Election
Committee members. In the meantime, pro-Beijing supporters
don't need to be told what to do -- they know Beijing is
hoping for an uncontested, smooth, and predictable election.
End Comment.


3. (C) On December 10, approximately 220,000 Hong Kong
citizens will be eligible to cast votes for the 800-member
Chief Executive Election Committee (EC). Nobody in Hong Kong
has any doubt that incumbent CE Donald Tsang will be
reelected for a five-year term in March 2007; the only
relevant questions are whether his sole opponent, Civic Party
legislator Alan Leong, will reach the 100-nomination
threshold in February required to contest the election, and
to what extent the central government in Beijing might
attempt to influence the electoral process.

Two Contenders, One Platform
--------------


4. (SBU) CE Tsang has not yet formally announced his
candidacy for reelection, nor has he provided any hint about
his policy priorities for 2007-12. In his October 11 annual
Policy Address (ref a),Tsang specifically limited his
discussion to issues he could address during the remaining
months of his current term, an approach which generated
considerable criticism for lacking substance. Since that
address, Tsang has not offered any hints about possible
policy initiatives during his presumptive second term.


5. (SBU) Civic Party legislator Alan Leong, who became the
pan-democracy camp's candidate following former Chief
Secretary Anson Chan's decision not to run (ref b),formally

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declared his candidacy on November 6. In contrast to Tsang's
avoidance of substantive proposals, Leong has offered a broad
agenda of political, economic, and social measures that he
believes are urgently required: universal suffrage,
improvements in the education system, a minimum wage, health
care reform, and measures to reduce air pollution. To
address these and other policy needs, Leong said a
democratically elected government is a prerequisite for good
governance; without electoral competition, he asked
rhetorically, how could the city have a real debate on the
issues?


6. (C) On November 20, Leong told the Consul General that he
had hoped to build momentum for his campaign by announcing
his candidacy early, knowing that CE Tsang would announce
late; Leong then would be able to shape the debate agenda.
(Note: Hong Kong law states that Government officials cannot
be candidates for CE. Tsang will have to step down as CE
before formally announcing his own candidacy; it is widely
expected he will resign close to the start of the CE
nomination period in February. End Note.) In a November 21
speech at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, Leong
said he had decided to run because the absence of electoral
competition had left the people of Hong Kong with leaders who

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were "arrogant and remote." He acknowledged that the
election would be difficult, because the "system is rigged"
and there would be "intense political pressure" on individual
electors to support the incumbent; how many of these
electors, he asked, would be "willing to commit financial or
professional suicide" to support him?

Procedures Stipulated by the Basic Law
--------------


7. (SBU) Under Hong Kong's Basic Law, an Election Committee
of 800 Hong Kong residents chooses the Chief Executive for a
five-year term. The last such election was in 2005,
following the early resignation of incumbent Tung Chee-hwa.
(See paragraph 9 for the current timetable.) A CE candidate
must be a Chinese citizen, at least 40 years old, a permanent
resident of Hong Kong who has resided in the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) for at least twenty
years, and have no right of abode in a foreign country.
Annex I of the Basic Law outlines the method for the
selection of the Chief Executive, including the composition
of the EC and the nomination of CE candidates. To become a
CE candidate, a person must receive nominations from at least
100 of the 800 Election Committee members. Each member can
only nominate one candidate. If there are two or more
candidates who each receive more than 100 nominations, the EC
will vote by sec-ret ballot, about a month later, with each
member getting one vote. The candidate who receives an
absolute majority (at least 401) of the votes becomes CE. If
there is only one CE candidate, the EC would cast a "vote of
confidence" by sec-ret ballot on the sole candidate; the
candidate would also need an absolute majority to become CE.


8. (C) The EC is composed of four sectors of 200 members
each, representing various business, social, professional,
political and organizational constituencies. The four
sectors are further broken down into 38 subsectors. Septel
will discuss the Byzantine structure of the 800-person
Election Committee. Suffice it to say that the
sector/subsector structure encourages maximum influence by
inherently conservative business and organizational elites.

Four-Stage Process
--------------


9. (SBU) The first stage of the election process took place
November 1-8, when eligible voters submitted nominations for
the EC to the Hong Kong Government's Electoral and
Registration Office. During the second stage, scheduled for
December 10, the voters in each subsector will elect their
specified shares of the 800 EC members. In the third stage,
to be held on a yet to be determined date in February, the
Government will announce a nomination period, during which
the 800 EC members can nominate candidates for Chief
Executive; each voter's selection will be a matter of public
record. To contest the CE election, a candidate must receive
at least 100 nominations. The fourth and final phase will
take place on March 25, when the EC members will vote by
sec-ret ballot to elect the next CE.

Prospects
--------------


10. (SBU) Of the 333 EC members whose seats are uncontested,
only about 18-20 (the Legislative Council (Legco)
pan-democrats) are expected to nominate Alan Leong, while the
other 5-7 Legco pan-democrats plan to abstain. For the
remaining 467 contested EC seats, the pan-democrats are
fielding 104 candidates, but expect to do well in just a few
subsectors: legal, education, higher education, health
services, medical, information technology, social welfare,
and district councils. The First Sector, composed of
representatives from pro-Beijing and/or pro-business
industrial and commercial groups, will deliver nearly all of
its 200 votes to the incumbent; only four pro-democracy
individuals from the tourism subsector might win places. The
Second, Third, and Fourth Sectors, representing various
professional groups, discussed in septel, are expected to
provide the bulk of Leong's support. Most of the 200 seats
in the Fourth Sector, including the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC),the National
People's Congress (NPC),the Heung Yee Kuk (certain
indigenous New Territories residents whose seats are
guaranteed by the Basic Law) and Legco, are uncontested, but
there are contested races for 42 District Council seats.


11. (C) As of two days before the vote, opinions remain

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divided on whether the pan-democrats will win at least one
hundred seats. NPC delegate and Liberal Party founder Allen
Lee told us on December 4 that he expected Leong to gain no
more than 80-90 seats, short of the minimum needed to contest
the March 2007 election. Similarly, Democratic Party Vice
Chairman Chan King-ming told us on November 30 that Leong had
"no chance" to get one hundred seats in the EC. Various
other pan-democratic leaders, including Civic Party
legislator Ronny Tong, Democratic Party Chairman Lee Wing-tat
and Civic Party Secretary General Joseph Cheng, have been
slightly more optimistic, but still will only venture that
Leong has a "good chance" to reach the threshold. Even if
the democrats exceed the 100 level on December 10, however,
their strategists fear there could be "erosion" of their
support, presumably due to pressure from the central
government and/or its local supporters, before the final vote
on March 25. To provide for that contingency, Cheng and
others feel Leong needs to win at least 120-130 seats on
December 10 "to be safe."


12. (C) Allen Lee and Joseph Cheng also agree that the
pan-democrats would need a high turnout (at least 40 percent,
compared to the roughly 20 percent turnout in 2005).
According to Cheng, however, the Leong candidacy is fighting
to overcome a surprising level of apathy among potential
voters; many of the academics, attorneys, and other
professionals who would be expected to support Leong were not
well informed on the issues and did not even know the date of
the election. Beijing, on the other hand, was "fully
mobilized" for the election: the pro-Beijing camp in Hong
Kong had worked hard to produce lists of well-known or at
least "neutral" candidates in many sectors, and also had
attempted in most of the professional subsectors to "blur the
differences" on policy issues and platforms between their
candidates and the pan-democrats. For example, Cheng said he
attended a December 1 seminar at Hong Kong University where
two candidates in the higher education subsector, both
university vice presidents whom Cheng knew to favor Donald
Tsang, had announced publicly that they had "democracy in

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their blood."

PRC Influence
--------------


13. (C) Specific and reliable information concerning efforts
by the central government to influence the outcome of the CE
election process is almost impossible to find. Many
observers can supply rumors or conjectures, but few can offer
specifics; other observers cast as nefarious actions that
would otherwise be considered normal competitive electoral
politics. One common thread is that Beijing has encouraged
its supporters to contest the EC election to "dilute" the
pro-democracy vote. For example, as early as March 2006, the
Hong Kong press reported that mainland officials responsible
for Hong Kong and Macau affairs had told Hong Kong delegates
to the NPC and CPPCC during meetings in Beijing that the
pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and
Progress of Hong Kong (DAB),the Liberal Party, and
"patriotic businessmen" should try their best to participate
in the EC election. The press also speculated that the PRC
Liaison Office in Hong Kong would coordinate the activities
of the pro-Beijing groups for the EC election. In April,
Executive Council and Legco member Jasper Tsang Yok-sing
wrote in the independent "Ming Pao" newspaper that a
landslide victory for Tsang, preferably with no opponent,
would be conducive to Hong Kong's stability and prosperity
and was therefore a scenario that the central government
would favor.
Sakaue