Hong Kong - Sixty seven per cent of people in Hong Kong want to elect all their own legislators when elections are held in 2012, according to a survey Tuesday. Fifty eight per cent also say they want to elect their own chief executive in the same year, according to the survey conducted by members of the pro-democracy movement.
The survey was released ahead of Wednesday's closing of a three-month public consultation on political reform in the former British colony, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 but maintained political freedoms.
Currently, only half of the territory's 60 legislators are directly elected and there is no popular vote for chief executive, who is chosen by a largely pro-Beijing election committee.
Incumbent Donald Tsang was appointed for a five-year term earlier this year while legislative council elections are due to be held next year to pick legislators for the subsequent four years.
Hong Kong is technically entitled to full democracy from 2007 under the terms of its mini-constitution but neither Beijing nor the territory's China-appointed administration have so far committed to a date for universal suffrage.
Government officials have already indicated that 2017 is likely to be named as the date for universal suffrage when the public consultation over political reform is concluded.
