| HKSAR LegCo Election
I. Introduction
Under the Basic Law, the Legislative Council
is the legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The powers
and functions that the Legislative Council is to exercise are specified in Article
73 of the Basic Law. They include:
(a) to enact laws;
(b) to
examine and approve budgets, taxation and public expenditure;
(c) to
receive and debate the policy addresses of the Chief Executive;
(d) to
raise questions on the work of the government;
(e) to debate issues concerning
public interests; and
(f) to receive and handle complaints from Hong
Kong residents.
II. Constitution of the Legislative Council
The method for constituting the Legislative Council is prescribed in the Basic
Law. For the third term Legislative Council, 30 members were returned by geographical
constituencies, and the remaining 30 by functional constituencies. The third term
of office of the Legislative Council began on October 1, 2004. The term of office
is four years.
Regarding geographical constituency election, the territory
of Hong Kong is divided into five geographical constituencies, i.e. Hong Kong
Island, Kowloon West, Kowloon East, New Territories West and New Territories East.
Each constituency returns a specified number (on the basis of the size of population
residing in the constituency) of Legislative Council members. The list voting
system operating under the largest remainder formula applies in the geographical
constituency elections. This is a form of proportional representation, capable
of producing election results which reflect more accurately voter preferences.
Regarding functional constituency election, there are 28 functional constituencies
returning a total of 30 members. These functional constituencies represent sectors
which are substantial and important to the development of the community. Each
of the functional constituencies returned one member, with the exception of the
labour functional constituency which returned three. The first-past-the-post voting
system is used in the elections of the majority of functional constituencies.
III. The Third Term Legislative Council Elections
Elections
to the third term Legislative Council were held on 12 September 2004. A total
of 159 candidates signed up for the poll. Of these, 88 competed for the 30 geographical
constituency seats, and 60 for the 19 functional constituency seats. Eleven candidates
have been elected unopposed in 11 functional constituencies.
The public
participated actively in the elections. The number of voters who cast their votes
and the respective turnout rates are set out below:
i) Geographical constituencies
Number of voters: 1,784,406
Turnout Rate: 55.64%
ii)
Functional constituencies:
Number of voters: 134,852
Turnout
Rate: 70.1%
For more details on the Third Term Legislative Council Elections,
please click here
to visit the relevant website.
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