Universal suffrage in Hong Kong by 2017?

Amid growing anti-China sentiment, Hong Kong's voters go to the polls on Sept.9 to institutionalize universal suffrage by 2017.

The fifth-term Legislative Council (LegCo) election will lay the legal basis for the direct election of Hong Kong's government leadership, and do away with leaders appointed by Beijing that has been the norm since Hong Kong returned to China in 1997.

The Legislative Council's next four-year term will set the stage for one-person, one-vote leadership elections in 2017, when Beijing promised universal suffrage for the first time.

China has promised to extend that to elections for the Legislative Council in 2020,. If implemented, this will do away with a convoluted voting system that ensures pro-Beijing parties and candidates dominate Hong Kong's government.

Pro-democracy leaders doubt China will allow universal suffrage, however. They say China's communist leaders have no intention of losing control over one of the world's leading financial centers to candidates who might be anti-communist.

"If the pan-democrats are able to muster half of the 70 seats, they will be able to galvanise enough support to enable universal suffrage to take place in 2017," Chinese University of Hong Kong political analyst Willy Lam said.

But if they lose the one-third they currently hold, they will be unable to prevent the establishment camp "bulldozing through anti-democratic bills," he added.

"The rules of the game are almost fatal for the democratic camp," said Frederick Fung of the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood, a small democratic party.

Thirty of the seats in the assembly are elected by so-called functional constituencies consisting of pro-China members of professional bodies and wealthy businessmen.

Half are directly elected from geographical constituencies where anyone is free to nominate--and where pro-Beijing parties generally fare poorly.

The remaining five seats in the new assembly (expanded from 60 to 70 seats under changes agreed two years ago) will be directly elected from members of district councils currently dominated by pro-Beijing parties.