Beijing’s upcoming changes to a committee that elects Hong Kong’s chief executive will end the “kingmaker” role of the business sector, a member of the election body has said.

The central government is seeking to ensure only “patriots” would rule Hong Kong by undertaking a sweeping overhaul of the city’s election system, which governs the selection of the chief executive, the Legislative Council and the district councils.

Responsibility for picking the chief executive falls on a 1,200-strong election committee, where traditionally, the business sector directly holds dozens of votes. The number of votes they can influence in total is more than 100.

The democratic camp, meanwhile, has seen its fortunes on the committee rise and fall. After an election in 2016, the camp had only around 300 votes, but they could still affect who became chief executive by joining forces with the business sector to make up more than 400 votes. The candidate with at least 601 votes wins the race and takes Hong Kong’s top job.

In the 2017 election, some pan-democrats and business-sector voters supported candidates John Tsang and Woo Kwok-hing instead of Carrie Lam, who eventually won.

The next election is coming up in a year’s time in March 2022. Under Beijing’s new rules, the committee’s membership would be increased from 1,200 to 1,500 by adding “patriots” to the body. A new sector would also be created over and above the original four, and it would be formed by Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference members and leaders of patriotic groups in the city.

Chief executive candidates must henceforth obtain a certain number of nominations from all of the five sectors, a requirement that was previously absent.

The changes signaled Beijing’s intention to crush the influence of the business voters and stop them from being “kingmakers,” a member of the business sector on the election committee told Apple Daily.

Reform of the system showed that Beijing did not trust the business sector or certain pro-establishment figures, the member said. They would become politically useless, he said.

He cited a poem “First they came...” by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller in describing their loss of influence.

Another interviewee, a core member of a pro-establishment party, told Apple Daily that the reform was in line with Beijing’s original intention for the election committee to allow equal participation for all.

Beijing was only catching up with the trend of a new era, by not giving more importance to the business sector, the person said.

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