Beijing is studying ways and means of slashing the presence of Hong Kong’s directly elected district councilors in the panel that selects the city’s next chief executive, Apple Daily has learnt, in continued efforts to whittle away at the role of local pro-democracy groups.

Among dozens of proposals submitted to Beijing, one suggested removing the powers of district councilors to vote for 117 representatives who would sit on the Election Committee, a 1,200-member panel which selected Hong Kong’s leader every five years, people familiar with the situation told the newspaper.

Another radical suggestion would see the scrapping of five Legislative Council seats held by district councilors and directly elected by most of the city’s registered voters. The five legislative roles, known as “super seats” because of the broad public mandate they commanded, had disrupted “balanced participation” in Hong Kong’s political system, sources said.

Beijing is understood to be seeking to remove Hong Kong district councilors, predominantly members of pro-democracy groups, from the committee in order to better manipulate the result of the next chief executive election, due in 2022.

Pro-democracy groups won 385 out of 452 seats at District Council elections in November last year, which in turn allowed the bloc to clinch control of all 117 seats set aside for district councilors in the committee and, with other pro-democracy voters on board, expand its presence to 430 seats next year.

Beijing was expected to formally float these proposals in March during the next plenary meeting by the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, sources said.

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play