Elections for Hong Kong’s legislature will likely be deferred for a second year to September 2022 as Beijing plans a major overhaul of the city’s electoral system, a severe blow to remaining hopes of democracy in the global financial hub.
The delay, which the South China Morning Post and other local media reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources, would be in line with a new effort by Beijing to ensure “patriots” are in charge of all public institutions in the former British colony.
The National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, will pass the changes at its annual session which opened on Friday and will last a week.
Senior Chinese lawmaker Wang Chen said China will change the size, composition, and formation method of an electoral committee that chooses Hong Kong’s leader and give it powers to pick many of the city’s legislators as well.
The changes follow mass anti-government protests in 2019 and a subsequent crackdown that has left most high-profile pro-democracy politicians and activists either in jail or in exile, along with the imposition of a sweeping national security law.
Still, Beijing is keen to eliminate any possibility of the opposition affecting the outcome of elections in Hong Kong, whose return to Chinese rule came with a promise of a high degree of autonomy.
Hong Kong Secretary for Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Erick Tsang has defined patriotism as “holistic love” for China, including the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
Riding high on the back of the 2019 protests, the democratic camp had some slim hopes of winning an unprecedented legislative majority in 2020 elections, which the government postponed, citing the coronavirus.
But with some political parties disbanding and pro-democracy politicians in jail, it is unclear what shape any future opposition will take in Hong Kong and how its message could fit with the patriotic loyalty demanded by the Communist Party.
Beijing had promised universal suffrage as an ultimate goal for Hong Kong in its mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
“This is more than going backwards, it’s getting close to the opposite extreme, moving further away from universal suffrage,” said Ivan Choy, senior lecturer at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s department of government and public administration, referring to the planned changes.