Insight | Should Macau adopt the HK electoral package?

Paulo Barbosa

Following the 79-day Occupy Central movement, legislators are set to vote on an electoral reform plan before the end of July. The plan would introduce universal suffrage to elect the chief executive. But there is a major detail that is in the center of the dissent: residents of the neighboring region would only be allowed to vote on candidates screened by a 1,200-strong China-backed committee, with a maximum of three candidates allowed to run.
This would mean, in practical terms, that it would be almost impossible for an independent (some may say “anti-establishment”) candidate to pass the nomination process. The South China Morning Post completed some complex calculations and concluded the following: “Assuming that about 200 supporters of the pan-democratic camp sit on the nominating committee, an aspirant from that camp would need to bet on the chance that more than 400 committee members with a government-friendly background, who wanted to block a rival of their favored candidate from going forward to the popular ballot, would vote for the pan-democrat.”
The reformist camp would need an impossible conspirator, the likes of House of Cards’ Frank Underwood, to achieve such a goal. Or, as it is pointed out later in the SCMP article, this is pure wishful thinking, since “no pro-establishment candidates could afford to let the pan-democrat join the public vote and risk the chance of losing to the latter.”
It is therefore a biased election, but many Hong Kong residents are willing to accept the model, which they find better than the current CE election process. According to a survey commissioned by Now TV, public opinion remains deeply divided about the plan. Of 1,167 people surveyed, 47 percent supported the proposal while 38 percent opposed it.  However, since pro-democracy lawmakers have a lot of influence at Legco, the plan is expected to falter, which could mean that the current election model could remain for the next election in 2017.
I wonder what would happen if the HK plan was to be introduced in Macau, overruling what some reformist associations deem as “small circle” CE election procedures.
The big advantage that strikes me is that we could have a real election, instead of the current plebiscite. Although it is possible, under the present rules, to have more than one candidate for the CE post, the local oligarchy seems to prefer a smooth election with a single candidate. This obviously goes against the guidelines of any fair election, since pluralism and different views are not promoted. There isn’t a single solution to the many issues that challenge the region and as such there shouldn’t be only one candidate in the running.
If there is a universal election for the top post with several candidates, that would mean that those candidates need to fight for the vote and can’t hide behind bureaucracies and procedures. Obviously, the pre-screening of the candidates limits the elector’s choice, but at least people can vote on a style and a set of policies, even if they are more or less pre-determined by Beijing.
Another relevant aspect is education about democracy. If there is universal suffrage for the top post in the region, electors could feel empowered (in HK there are 5 million eligible voters) and perceive that their vote counts for something. Currently in Macau this sense that every citizen’s vote counts is lacking. Therefore, phenomena like vote buying and even the “ethnic vote” (where, for example, residents with a Fujian background vote for Chan Meng Kam) arise.
Of course, as the opponents to the HK plan swiftly pointed out, the adoption of such an idea  could bring a negative side effect: the democratic legitimation of the chief executive. In this scenario, the next leader could claim to have been elected by universal suffrage and forget the above-mentioned “major detail.” Yes, he would have been elected by all, but previously chosen by a 1,200 member nominating committee. So the question remains: How many voted, 5 million or 1,200?