Hong Kong has a constitutional requirement to form a 'broadly representative' Nominating Committee as part of the process to elect the Chief Executive by universal suffrage, CY Leung said in a statement today.
Responding to comments about the issues Mr Leung raised in interviews to overseas media yesterday, the statement issued by the Chief Executive's Office stressed that people must look to the Basic Law to provide the broader context and the legal reality.
'Broadly representative' is not just a question of absolute numbers; it is also a question of taking into account the needs and priorities of a broad range of sectors as much as possible, the statement added.
Mr Leung referred to the importance of sub-sectors in the 1,200-member Election Committee, such as catering, finance, import and export, transport, legal, medical, education, social welfare, agriculture and fisheries, sports and performing arts, religious groups and political representatives, despite the fact that some of them are very small.
He also shared his campaign experience, saying that any potential Chief Executive candidates must try to cultivate support in as many of these sub-sectors as possible to satisfy the requirement of being nominated by a 'broadly representative' group.
Any nominated candidate in a universal suffrage election in Hong Kong will have to win the greatest number of votes to be elected, he added.
