The new committee to vet future candidates in Hong Kong elections will be far from independent, but stocked with people close to the city’s inner circle of power, according to a Beijing loyalist.

Beijing won’t let “outsiders” or “third parties” take charge of the screening as it involves national security, said Bernard Chan, a top aide to Chief Executive Carrie Lam and a Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature.

“I believe it won’t be too complicated. There is no need to get judges involved,” Chan told pro-Beijing media Think Hong Kong on Friday. The vetting would be conducted internally by an “internal organization,” he said.

Chan’s remarks come ahead of the NPC standing committee’s meetings on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the details of Beijing’s overhaul of Hong Kong’s political system. On the agenda are proposed amendments to annexes in the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, on the methods for selecting the chief executive and legislature, as well as the establishment of the vetting committee itself.

One essential quality to pass the vetting process would be a genuine agreement with the Basic Law and with the Chinese Communist Party’s role as the country’s ruling party, Chan said. Some Hong Kong politicians who had “demonized” the mainland would not be allowed to stand in elections, he said.

Chan believed that Beijing would not tolerate any “laid-back” behavior by Hong Kong cabinet ministers after the overhaul. The central government needed a team of competent politicians to govern Hong Kong, he said.

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