Hong Kong Political Reform: Is ‘Chinese Democracy’ The Best The Region Can Get?
IEMS’ David Zweig spoke to the International Business Times on the prospects of Hong Kong’s electoral reform, in which each citizen would be granted a vote for the city’s next chief executive. While many Hong Kong citizens and legislators want the freedom to cast their vote for whomever they wish, the Chinese Central Government is pressuring local legislators to enact legislation which would confine potential candidates to a pool of those selected by a largely-unelected group of legislators, many of whom are thought to be extremely pro-Beijing.
As David Zweig commented:
“[Hong Kong’s heated debate over its upcoming electoral process] does not bode well,” said David Zweig, director of the Center on China’s Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “Beijing’s strategy in doing this is to try and stabilize Hong Kong, and that’s one of the reasons they want to have universal suffrage. They believe that the chief executive will be more legitimate and better able to govern.”
However, Zweig said, “My concern is that the next Chief Executive will have no legitimacy, even less than if it were through some kind of electoral process.”
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