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A man walks past a government advertisement to promote the new Hong Kong electoral system reform Kin Cheung/PA

China sharply reduces elected seats in Hong Kong legislature during radical overhaul

The amendments to Hong Kong’s constitution will give Beijing more control over the make-up of the city’s legislature.

CHINESE LEADERS HAVE endorsed a sweeping overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system, slashing its number of directly elected seats and ensuring a majority of the city’s lawmakers will be selected by a reliably pro-Beijing committee.

The new measures, which bypassed Hong Kong’s legislature and were imposed directly by Beijing, are the latest move aimed at quashing the city’s democracy movement after huge protests.

Chinese state media said the changes to Hong Kong’s Basic Law – the mini-charter that gifted the city special freedoms after its handover by Britain in 1997 – were agreed by China’s top decision-making body after “President Xi Jinping signed presidential orders to promulgate the amended annexes”.

Under the new measures, anyone hoping to enter Hong Kong’s political scene will need to be vetted by a powerful committee – and the number of directly elected seats will be slashed from half to less than a quarter.

“The National Security Committee and the National Security Police will provide reports on every single candidate to assist the vetting by the qualification review committee,” Tam Yiuchung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate on China’s rubber-stamp parliament, told AFP.

Under the new law, Hong Kong’s legislature will be expanded from 70 to 90 seats.

Only 20 of those seats will now be directly elected, down from 35. The majority – 40 – will be chosen by a reliably pro-Beijing committee.

The remaining 30 will be chosen by “functional constituencies” – bodies representing certain industries and special interest groups that have also been historically loyal to Beijing.

The move appears “to run against the spirit of having, free, fair and competitive elections,” Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor on politics from the National University of Singapore, told AFP.

“Certainly, giving a police force the power to oversee who can stand for elections is not seen in systems usually deemed democratic in a meaningful sense,” he added.

‘Combination of punches’

The sweeping changes were approved 167-0 during China’s annual NPC meeting around two weeks ago.

That prompted global outrage, with Britain announcing China is no longer compliant with Hong Kong’s joint declaration which had guaranteed freedoms until at least 2047 and the US railing at the stifling of democracy.

China’s leaders have acted decisively to dismantle Hong Kong’s limited democratic pillars after massive protests in 2019, imposing a national security law that has been weaponised against the financial hub’s democracy movement.

Dozens of campaigners have been prosecuted or jailed, smothering protests in a city that had enjoyed greater political freedoms than the authoritarian mainland under the “One country, two systems” arrangement.

Beijing has trumpeted the electoral reform as the second of a “combination of punches” to quell unrest in the southern city, alongside the blanket security law.

The withering of Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms is one of the key fronts opening up between the West and China – which insists the territory is an internal affair.

But the crackdown in Hong Kong, a once-freewheeling financial hub home to hundreds of thousands of expatriate workers, has sent a shudder across the global community.

US President Joe Biden sees the corralling of the city’s freedoms as part of a wider China-led assault on democracy and rights, including the treatment of Muslim minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

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    Mute Sam Harms
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:15 PM

    If weddings can happen this weekend restaurants should have been allowed to stay open until Monday so that they don’t waste the stock they would have bought in for the weekend which will now just be more money lost.

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    Mute ihcalaM
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:22 PM

    @Sam Harms: Good point, didn’t think about that; presumably they didn’t want a huge rush on restaurants before they’re closed for the three weeks though which was probably the reason for the sudden announcement.

    27
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    Mute Claude Saulnier
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:47 PM

    @Sam Harms: it wouldn’t be good for deliveroo and uber eats.

    4
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    Mute Mary Ann Sweeney
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:15 PM

    Does the virus not spread at the weekends? What’s the difference between now and Monday?

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    Mute Claude Saulnier
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:45 PM

    @Mary Ann Sweeney: 2 days. Can’t answer the first one.

    28
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    Mute PeeedOff
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    Sep 18th 2020, 7:36 PM

    @Mary Ann Sweeney: This has to be the most intelligent virus on the planet, it wont get you in 105 mins while eating a meal, it only appears if 26 attend a wedding. Or if 7 are in the house. You can also fly with over 100 people on an aircraft. You can take a ferry with several hindered people to another country, yep apparently it won’t get ya there either.

    Over 200 In one meat plant countless more in others and yet they operate as if nothing is happening. A few hundred Active cases in Dublin and yep yer locked up or down whichever way its the same thing. Oh and yesterday house parties were the cause, but today without any evidence whatsoever its restaurants and pubs.

    Definitely the smartest virus ever.

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    Mute Decko49
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    Sep 19th 2020, 9:26 AM

    @PeeedOff: Its just a pity you’re not as smart as it.

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    Mute Decko49
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    Sep 19th 2020, 9:27 AM

    @PeeedOff: Has any member of your family or any friends died from the virus?

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    Mute PeeedOff
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    Sep 19th 2020, 9:53 AM

    @Decko49: Yes, do you want their Names and address’s. Well I’ll give you their location. The Cemetery.

    Any other personal info you require. Or is the Cynical interrogation finished now.

    And yes, this is now a Casedemic, which this Government is now bending over backwards to destroy society in Ireland.

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    Mute Jeanette Dunne
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:23 PM

    another blow to anyone getting married in the next few days up there, I’ve resigned to the fact the wedding we planned for June 2020 will never be.thinking we were safe pushing it to august, nope, definitely next May right?? Nope probably not!

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    Mute Aaron
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:43 PM

    @Jeanette Dunne: Just push it to late next year? Might have a better chance then

    9
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    Mute SB
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:25 PM

    Covid 19 is such an intelligent virus it knows the difference between 50 at weekends and 25 from Monday

    32
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    Mute Peter Bell
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:23 PM

    Sad times we are living in…..

    20
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    Mute D4 Observer
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:20 PM

    Should have let the communions go ahead too.

    19
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    Mute nelliekel
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    Sep 18th 2020, 6:34 PM

    Wgat about the poor children were to make communion tmw been told day before its cancelled

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    Mute Rachael Baldwin
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    Sep 18th 2020, 9:29 PM

    @nelliekel: Completely agree! My nephew and some of my friends kids were due to have theirs tomorrow too and to find out less than 24 hours before is disgusting. Don’t understand how weddings can go ahead and communions can’t. Furious for the parents and kids.

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    Mute Pauline Gallagher
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    Sep 18th 2020, 11:59 PM

    @Rachael Baldwin: Pointless day anyway.

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    Mute William Kelly
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    Sep 18th 2020, 7:11 PM

    Ah shure, just split the hooley into 2 x25 phases. Lots of wedding feasts go over 2 days or more.
    Could be the way forward, his & hers maybe.

    6
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