CHIEF EXECUTIVE ELECTION COMMITTEE: WHO MIGHT VOTE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HONG KONG 004691

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP AND EAP/CM
NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/08/2031
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR SOCI CH HK
SUBJECT: CHIEF EXECUTIVE ELECTION COMMITTEE: WHO MIGHT VOTE
FOR THE DEMOCRATS?

REF: A. HONG KONG 4690

B. HONG KONG 4398

C. HONG KONG 3208

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


1. (C) Summary: On December 10, a limited number of Hong Kong
residents will select the 800 members of the Hong Kong Chief
Executive Election Committee (EC),which in turn will choose
the next Chief Executive (CE) in March 2007. Ref a reviewed
the complicated Hong Kong electoral process, discussed
prospects for Alan Leong, the pan-democratic candidate, to
reach the 100-vote threshold needed to nominate a candidate
for the March election, and noted that the pan-democrats are
unlikely to win any seats from the First Sector. Instead,
they hope to win enough seats in the Second and Third
Sectors, which include various professional and religious
groups, and also expect at least 18-20 of the pan-democratic
Legco members holding seats in the Fourth Sector to help
Leong reach the threshold. None of our contacts could
provide any substantive information on attempts by Beijing to
influence the election, although some observed that indirect
influence from Beijing served to stifle the growth of
democracy in Hong Kong. An interesting side issue in the
Fourth Sector is the intent of 5-7 Legco pan-democrats to
abstain from the EC election process, because they view the
"small circle" electoral system as inherently undemocratic;
to participate, in their view, would only help legitimize the
existing system and provide an unjustifiable mandate for the
presumed victor, Donald Tsang. End Summary.


2. (SBU) The Hong Kong Chief Executive Election Committee is
composed of four sectors, each with 200 members. As ref a
noted, Hong Kong's electoral system is Byzantine and at best
only partially democratic; the result of the electoral
process almost certainly will be a new five-year term for the
incumbent CE, Donald Tsang, who then will preside over
possibly intense debate on further democratization and
political reform in Hong Kong. This cable provides a more
detailed description of the selection process for the EC's
Second Sector, which includes various professional groups
from which the pan-democrats hope to obtain most of their
seats; the Third Sector, where the democrats hope to pick up
twenty-plus seats from the social welfare and religion
subsectors; and the Fourth Sector, which mostly consists of
ex-officio members from the National People's Congress (NPC),
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC),the Hong Kong Legislative Assembly (Legco),and
Heung Yee Kuk (an organization of certain indigenous New
Territories residents). The Fourth Sector also will hold
contested elections for 42 delegates from the district
councils.

Second Sector: Key for the Pan-democrats
--------------


3. (C) The Second Sector is the largest and most "popular" of
the four EC sectors, comprising over 80 percent of the
220,000 registered voters. As such, the pan-democrats
strongly believe they need a solid voter turnout on December
10 to increase their chances of success. The sector's legal,
education, higher education, medical, health services, and
information technology subsectors are the key focus areas for
the pro-democracy camp, and likely will account for 55-65
nominations for Alan Leong. In the legal subsector, which is
a stronghold for the pan-democrats in general and the Civic
Party in particular, the pan-democrats are fielding 20 of the
42 candidates and are optimistic that they can capture 18 of
the 20 seats available. There are two main groups contesting
this subsector: the pro-democracy, 16-member "Vote for
Universal Suffrage in 2012" ticket and the pro-government,
12-member group of solicitors headed by Law Society president
Peter Lo. Similarly, the education subsector also is
regarded as pro-democratic due to the dominance of the 80,000
member Professional Teachers' Union (PTU),which is headed by
Democratic Party (DP) legislator Cheung Man-kwong;
pan-democrats hope to win 12-15 of the 20 seats. In the
higher education subsector, with 49 candidates competing for
20 seats, the pan-democrats hope its 15 nominees will win
12-14 seats.


4. (C) In the medical subsector, with 63 candidates
contesting 20 seats, independent democratic Legco member Kwok
Ka-ki told us that about ten of the twenty seats were certain
to go to incumbent CE Tsang. Kwok said a handful of the
remaining votes would be cast by "young doctors," who while
relatively unknown by voters had been brought in to "balance

HONG KONG 00004691 002 OF 003


out" the old hands in the medical subsector. In the health
services subsector, with 37 candidates competing for 20
seats, pan-democratic hopes are uncertain; six candidates
represent the Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff, headed
by pan-democratic lawmaker Joseph Lee, but most of the other
candidates have not publicly expressed their preferences.
Finally, in the information technology and engineering
subsectors, 16 of the 81 candidates competing for a total of
40 seats are pan-democrats. A majority of IT subsector
voters reportedly support PCCW Chairman Richard Li, who heads
the "IT20" ticket, while the conservative Hong Kong Institute
of Engineers leads the engineering subsector.


5. (C) While none of our contacts could provide any
substantive information on attempts by Beijing to influence
the election, Democratic Party Vice Chairman Chan King-ming,
who is running for a seat in the higher education subsector,
described the election to us as a "dirty game." He said
Beijing's influence on the election, while not direct or
confirmed, had stifled party politics in Hong Kong and
limited pressure on CE Donald Tsang following his Policy
Address in October. Alluding to increasing democracy in the
SAR, Chan said that "the beginning for Hong Kong is the end
for Beijing." Chan confidently surmised that "Hong Kong
trusts and has confidence in its people," but that "Beijing
does not." Chan also charged that Beijing's "middle men" are
a manifestation of the Central Government's lack of trust in
the SAR's political system, but he admitted that knowing the
real affiliation -- government or not -- or intentions of
each was difficult. He also said the "middle men" frequently
asked whether the U.S. was funding political activities in
the SAR. Legco member Kwok, who noted that the general lack
of interest in the EC election served as a referendum on Hong
Kong's struggling governance, also believed that Beijing had
not pressured past Election Committee elections, but that the
young doctors may have "Central Government Liaison Office
(CGLO) loyalties."

Third Sector: Social Welfare and Religion
--------------


6. (C) The Third Sector includes five subsectors: agriculture
and fisheries; labor; religion; social welfare; and sports,
performing arts, culture, and publication. Each of these
subsectors will elect forty members of the EC; overall, the
pan-democratic groups hope to win at least twenty of the 200
seats, primarily from the social welfare subsector and with
at most a few from the religion subsector. The other
subsectors are dominated by corporate voters. (Note:
Corporate body voters are a unique Hong Kong electoral
concept. Depending on the subsector, a union, professional
association, business chamber, religious group, etc. may be
designated by the HKG as a corporate voter in the EC
election; critics of the corporate vote complain that this
severely limits the franchise within the various subsectors
and that corporate voters tend to be conservative. End Note.)


7. (C) Fernando Cheung, a democratic legislator representing
the social welfare functional constituency, told us he hoped
pro-democracy social workers would win more than twenty out
of the forty seats in the December 10 subsector election. In
one of the most hotly contested elections this Sunday, 99
candidates are courting 11,545 eligible individual voters,
including a reported 1,000 Government social workers.
According to Cheung, there are six separate groups
campaigning for votes in the subsector. Three groups have
publicly stated that they are likely to nominate the
pan-democratic Chief Executive (CE) candidate, Alan Leong,
including a union group wanting "protection" for social
welfare workers, a group running under the pro-democracy
banner, and a group of independents who are "inclined" to
vote for Leong; the remaining three coalitions likely will
vote for CE Tsang.


8. (C) In the religion subsector, the democrats at most may
pick up a handful of supporters. As described in ref c, the
Islamic, Daoist, Confucian and Buddhist subsectors have a
total of 26 members on the EC and are widely expected to
appoint all pro-Government representatives. The remaining 14
votes in the religion subsector are split evenly between the
Catholic and Protestant communities. Auxiliary Bishop John
Tong of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese told us that his
diocese, as a "matter of principle," did not agree with the
"small-circle" CE election and had deliberately chosen a
strategy of "passive cooperation" on providing the Government
with seven Catholic EC members. Nevertheless, Tong said he
could understand the desire by some Catholics to participate

HONG KONG 00004691 003 OF 003


in this "election" and did not want to be accused of "trying
to take away someone's human right" by denying them the
opportunity to serve on the EC. Therefore, the Diocese had
submitted the names of all interested Catholic nominees to
the HKG, which then staged a lottery to choose seven of the
twenty-plus candidates. Tong would not speculate on how the
Catholic EC members would vote; he chose to emphasize that
the Diocese intended to remain "100 percent passive" during
the CE election process.


9. (C) The Hong Kong Christian Council (HKCC),which
represents Hong Kong's Protestant community, organized an
internal election open to all Protestant Christians on
October 28-29. More than 17,000 votes were cast to elect
seven Protestant representatives from among 27 candidates.
Chan Ka Wai, a Democratic Party district councilor, told us
that at least six of the elected Protestant representatives
were likely to vote for Tsang, and that there "may be" one
member who would vote for Leong. Asked if he had heard of
Beijing interference in the HKCC election, Chan said that 2-3
of the candidates had been mobilized to participate in the
election by the Central Government Liaison Office (CGLO); he
was unclear whether these individuals were ultimately elected
to represent the Protestant community.

Fourth Sector
--------------


10. (C) In the Fourth Sector, most of the 200 seats (NPC,
CPPCC, Legco, and Heung Yee Kuk subsectors) are "ex-officio"
and uncontested, so are not at stake in the December 10 vote.
The pan-democrats hope to gain some of the 42 seats in the
competitive district council races, where they have fielded
27 candidates, including two from the Civic Party and 25 from
the DP. They are opposed by 48 pro-government candidates,
including twelve from the DAB. Some observers believe the
pan-democrats have little chance to win any seats in this
subsector, in part because some of the more radical
pan-democratic district councilors are boycotting the "small
circle" election process.


11. (C) An interesting issue in the Fourth Sector is the
decision by 5-7 of the Legco pan-democrats to abstain from
the EC election process, which would mean that Alan Leong can
only count on 18-20 votes from among his democratic Legco
colleagues. Most of this group of abstainers, which includes
Emily Lau of The Frontier, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung and
Albert Chan of the League of Social Democrats, Lee Cheuk-yan
and Lau Chin-shek of the Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU),
and Leung Yiu-chung of the Neighborhood and Workers Service
Center, will boycott the entire nomination process because
they believe the "small circle" electoral system is
inherently undemocratic; to participate, in their view, would
only help legitimize the existing system and provide an
unjustifiable mandate for the presumed victor, Donald Tsang.
Chan noted, however, that Lee Cheuk-yan and Lau Chin-shek
have said that they would cast their votes for Alan Leong, if
that would "make the difference" and propel him over the
100-vote threshold. One other probable abstainer,
independent democrat Albert "Taipan" Cheng, reportedly will
do so due to his long personal friendship with Tsang.
Elaborating on the reasons for their boycott, Albert Chan
told us on December 1 that Alan Leong's hope to engage in
debate with Donald Tsang was "ridiculous." Doing so only
would create further confusion in the minds of the people,
giving them a false impression that they were "somehow
involved in the election process." Chan said it would be far
better if all pan-democrats totally boycotted the election
process.
Sakaue