This motion allows for an increase in the number of election committee members in Hong Kong and Macao that will vote deputies there into the tenth NPC.
Rita Fan is President of the Hong Kong Legislative Council as well as an NPC deputy. She says Hong Kong has already got a broad-based election committee who has elected Hong Kong's Chief Executive. "All the election committee members themselves are by and large elected from their own functional constituencies. For example, doctors have 20 representatives, teachers from primary, secondary schools and kindergardens have 20 representatives, and social workers 40."
Rita Fan says these members are going to join others to form a 1000-plus-member election committee for the tenth NPC, doubling the number that was previously used. She added that the committee will come into being either later this year or early in 2003.
Other deputies also welcome the new procedure.
Lo Sukching, NPC Deputy from HK said, "The new procedure stipulates that those elected must receive votes from over half of the election committee members, which ensures that the deputies are really broad-based."
Ung Simeng is a NPC deputy from Macao. For over 30 years, he has been doing community service. That's why he got elected to represent "the people". He said, "The 200-member election committee is broad-based, including those from different societies, the Legislative Council and the CPPCC. "
According to the new procedure, all the 12 NPC deputies will be elected from Macao residents, while in the past only 7 of them were from Macao.
(CCTV March 9, 2002)
