Lawmakers argue candidates will face enormous difficulties campaigning in NT

Pro-government and opposition lawmakers said on Monday that candidates for the 2012 Legislative Council (LegCo) elections will face huge challenges following a redrawing of electoral boundaries.

The complaints noted it will be very difficult for candidates to contact the more than 2 million people in large constituencies like New Territories (NT) West, and the winner of the 9th seat in large nine-seat constituencies will require no more than 10 percent of votes.

The 2012 Legislative Council election will see 10 new seats. That will include five seats in geographical constituencies and five in functional constituencies.

Owing to population increases, geographical constituencies have been re-mapped and the seats re-allocated.

The Electoral Affairs Commission announced recently that Hong Kong Island will be allocated an extra seat, bringing the total number to seven.

Kowloon West remains unchanged at five. Kowloon East gains an additional seat bringing its number to five.

One seat has been added in NT West and two in NT East bringing the totals in each of those two constituencies to nine.

Submissions from the public about the changes are open until July 22.

At the LegCo Panel on Constitutional and Mainland Affairs meeting on Monday, Lee Wing-tat, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party, said candidates will find their campaigning work in NT West very difficult, given that it is very large in physical terms with a huge population.

NT West should have been delineated as two geographical constituencies, he argued.

Alternatively, the entire NT should have been re-mapped as three separate constituencies to provide a better balance, Lee said.

His party colleague Emily Lau noted that NT West and NT East each has nine seats, but NT West has a population of 2 .04 million against 1.69 million people in NT East.

It is unfair to the citizens in NT West since the value of each vote is diminished, she said.

Lee's views had concurrence of Ip Kwok-him, a lawmaker of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

"We had proposed dividing NT West into three constituencies, knowing the population of the whole NT is close to 4 million, but our proposal was not heeded," Ip said.

Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam admitted he had heard the proposal but chose to maintain the status quo because of an objection from the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions.

Adherence to the old arrangement will however benefit people who have served the same districts for a long time, he said.

joseph@chinadailyhk.com

China Daily

(HK Edition 07/19/2011 page1)