HK lawmakers reject election reform motion

Citizens carry placards and shout slogans outside the Legislative Council headquarters in Admiralty district to support the Hong Kong government's electoral reform package on June 17, 2015. Roy Liu / China Daily

China's Hong Kong Legislative Council on Thursday vetoed a motion of the proposed universal suffrage for selecting the region's next chief executive in 2017.

After a nine-hour debate which started on Wednesday, 28 lawmakers of the Legislative Council voted against the motion while eight voted in favor.

Many lawmakers left the chamber of the legislature building before the vote.

According to a decision by the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, the motion needs to be endorsed by at least two-thirds of all the 70 lawmakers, or 47 votes, in the Legislative Council.

Lawmakers on both sides of the political divide stood firm Wednesday on their position during the first day of the reform motion reading.

The Hong Kong government moved a motion to overhaul the method to select the city's next chief executive, prescribed in an annex of the Basic Law.

The motion was moved 20 months after the creation of a special task force to run the electoral reform process.

More than 3 million registered voters in the city will be able to elect the next chief executive by "one person, one vote" next year if more than 46 lawmakers out of the total of 70 vote for the motion.

But 27 opposition members and Leung Kalau, an independent lawmaker representing doctors, vowed earlier to veto the proposal.

Senior local officials made a last-minute pitch in the council chamber on Wednesday before the deliberations began, with Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor stressing that the electoral overhaul plan is the best possible option.