Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying told media that if the government met pro-democracy protesters’ demands it would result in the city’s poorer people dominating elections.
In an interview with foreign media, carried in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and theInternational New York Times, the embattled chief executive reiterated his position that free elections were impossible.
Demonstrators have paralysed parts of Hong Kong with mass rallies and road blockades for more than three weeks, in one of the biggest challenges to Beijing’s authority since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of 1989.
Leung’s comments were published just hours before talks between senior government officials and student leaders to end the impasse are scheduled to take place later on Tuesday.
China has offered Hongkongers the chance to vote for their next leader in 2017. But only those vetted by a committee expected to be loyal to Beijing will be allowed to stand - something protesters have labelled as “fake democracy”.
Leung said that if candidates were nominated by the public then the largest sector of society would likely dominate the electoral process.
“If it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you’d be talking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than US$1,800 a month [HK$13,964.2],” Leung said in comments published by the WSJ, the FT and the INYT.
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