Electoral System for the Legislative Council

(a) Geographical Constituency

The 20 members of the first term of the Legislative Council to be returned
from geographical constituencies will be elected by universal suffrage.
The HKSAR will be divided into five geographical constituencies, each
having three to five seats. The List Voting System operating under the
Largest Remainder formula, which is a form of the proportional
representation voting system, will be adopted. Candidates will contest the
election in the form of lists, and each list of candidates may consist of any
number of candidates up to the number of seats in the relevant
constituency. Any permanent resident of the HKSAR who is a Chinese
citizen with no right of abode in any foreign country may stand for
election in any geographical constituency, provided that he is a registered
elector on the General Electoral Roll, has attained the age of 21, and has
ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for the preceding three years. Electors
may vote only in the constituency in which they are registered.

(b) Functional Constituency

Each functional constituency represents an economic, social, or
professional group which is of substantial size and importance in the
HKSAR. These are: (1) Urban Council; (2) Regional Council; (3) Heung
Yee Kuk; (4) agriculture and fisheries; (5) insurance; (6) transport; (7)
education; (8) legal; (9) accountancy; (10) medical; (11) health services;
(12) engineering; (13) architectural, surveying and planning; (14) labour;
(15) social welfare; (16) real estate and construction; (17) tourism; (18)
commercial (first); (19) commercial (second); (20) industrial (first); (21)
industrial (second); (22) finance; (23) financial services; (24) sports,
performing arts, culture and publication; (25) import and export; (26)
textiles and garment; (27) wholesale and retail; and (28) information
technology. The labour functional constituency returns three Legislative
Council members and the other 27 functional constituencies return one
member each.

For functional constituency elections, a candidate must, besides satisfying
the usual age and residential requirements, be a registered elector on the
General Electoral Roll and also a registered elector of, or have a
substantial connection with, the relevant functional constituency. To give
due recognition to the significant contribution made by foreign nationals
and to enable them to be represented in the Legislative Council, permanent
residents of the HKSAR who are not of Chinese nationality or who have
the right of abode in foreign countries may also stand for election in 12
designated functional constituencies (i.e. functional constituencies No. 5,
8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25 in the preceding paragraph).
Elections for functional constituencies will be determined by simple
majority, except for the six small functional constituencies (i.e. functional
constituencies No. 1 to 6 in the preceding paragraph) which will be
determined by preferential elimination system.

Functional constituencies which represent professional groups have
electorates based on membership of those professions with
well-established and recognised qualifications, including statutory
qualifications. Each individual member will have one vote. The electorates
of functional constituencies representing economic or social groups are
generally made up of corporate members of major organisations
representative of the relevant sectors. Each corporate member will appoint
an authorised representative to cast the vote on its behalf in an election.

(c) Election Committee

The Election Committee will return 10 members of the first-term
Legislative Council. The qualifications for candidature are the same as
those for geographical constituency elections. The Election Committee
will be composed of 800 members who are HKSAR permanent residents
from four sectors: industrial, commercial and financial; the professions;
labour, social services and religious; and members of the Provisional
Legislative Council, Hong Kong deputies to the National People's
Congress, representatives of Hong Kong members of the National
Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and
representatives of district-based organisations. Each sector will return 200
members of the Election Committee.

The method for returning the 10 Legislative Council members by the
Election Committee will be by the block vote system, under which each
member of the Election Committee will be required to cast 10 votes and
the result will be determined by first-past-the-post.

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