China has
said it will not allow open nominations for candidates for the leadership of
Hong Kong in landmark 2017 elections. The announcement could trigger further
large-scale protests in the city.
Deutsche Welle, 31 Aug 2014
China's top
legislative body, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, ruled on
Sunday that Hong Kong's next chief executive would be chosen only from
candidates that had been nominated by a "broadly representative
committee," the official news agency Xinhua reported.
The move is
likely to trigger further protests in the city by pro-democracy groups, who
have threatened to block Hong Kong's financial district if authorities do not
allow candidates for the 2017 poll to be chosen freely.
Democracy
advocates say the nominating committee is likely to be stacked with pro-Beijing
loyalists who will exclude those candidates opposed to Chinese influence on the
former British colony.
Although
Hong Kong has enjoyed substantial political autonomy since being handed back to
China by Britain in 1997, its leader since then has been chosen by a
pro-Beijing committee.
China had
said back then that the elections in 2017 would be the first since the handover
to be decided by "universal suffrage," but Sunday's move would seem
to run counter to this promise.
In an
article on Friday run by Xinhua, the news agency said that Beijing had
"comprehensive jurisdiction" over Hong Kong, warning activists to
"cast off the illusion that Hong Kong is under full autonomy."
Contentious
campaign
Political
tensions over the issue have soared, with both pro-democracy groups and Beijing supporters holding protests.
In June,
the group Occupy Central, which is threatening the blockade of Hong Kong's
business district, organized an unofficial referendum that saw most of the
800,000 people who voted supporting reform packages allowing public nominations
for the elections.
The
pro-Beijing Alliance for Peace and Democracy then mounted a petition against
the Occupy campaign, which they said collected some 1.4 million signatures. The
group has denounced Occupy Central as a danger to the city's stability.
Pro-democracy
activists from Occupy were planning a protest in the city center for Sunday
night following Beijing's decision to control the nomination of election
candidates.
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