The standing committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the Chinese parliament, put its seal on a framework that allows only two or three candidates to run in the 2017 leadership vote in Hong Kong. Candidates can run only if they obtain majority backing from a nominating committee, which is expected to be filled with Beijing loyalists.
Observers said the decision by the Beijing-based parliamentary committee makes it extremely difficult for opposition democrats to get to vote. The move comes after pro-democracy protesters insisted on rule changes to enable Hong Kong to freely choose its leader without interference from Beijing. The committee granted universal suffrage for Hong Kong recognizing the principal of one-person-one-vote in the election of the city's chief executive but imposed controls on the selection of candidates.
"The nominating committee shall nominate two to three candidates for the office of chief executive in accordance with democratic procedure," the panel said. "Each candidate must have the endorsement of more than half of all the members of the nominating committee," it said.
"This is a legal, fair and reasonable decision. It is a dignified, prudent decision, and its legal effect is beyond doubt," Li Fei, the deputy secretary general of the NPC standing committee, told reporters after the decision.
The issue of fair elections has been a cause of friction in Hong Kong for the past 17 years since it merged with the mainland.
Critics of China said on Sunday that Beijing had gone back on its promise of "one country, two systems", made when the former British colony merged with it in 1997.
Leaders of the Occupy Central movement, which had been carrying out a pro-democracy stir in Hong Kong for the past several months, said in a statement that "all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and the occupation of central business district will definitely happen". It gave no timeframe for the action.
"Today is not only the darkest day in the history of Hong Kong's democratic development, today is also the darkest day of one country, two systems," said Benny Tai, a law professor and leader of Occupy Central.
"The NPC decision leaves no room for us to fight for a genuinely democratic system, and we will begin our campaign for peaceful, non-violent struggle," Joseph Cheng, convener of the Alliance for True Democracy, a coalition of groups advocating universal suffrage in Hong Kong, said on Sunday. "We want to tell the world we haven't given up. We will continue to fight."
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