China's Legislator on Method of Electing Macao SAR Deputies to Ninth NPC ����An electoral council responsible for electing Macao deputies to the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) will be established in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) after its return to China on December 20, 1999. ����The NPC Standing Committee will preside over the election of Macao SAR's 12 deputies to the Ninth NPC, according to a draft of the method for electing the Macao SAR's deputies to the Ninth NPC. ����At the Seventh meeting of the Ninth NPC Standing Committee that opened on January 29 , the meeting of chairman and vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee submitted the draft for consideration. ����Explaining the document, Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy director of the Commission of Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee, said the election method takes into consideration the relevant rules on the proportion of NPC deputies to the population, as well as the need of the Macao SAR to form its own delegation. ����Macao's five NPC deputies elected by the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress will become SAR's deputies to the Ninth NPC after the establishment of the Macao SAR, and the Macao SAR will then elect seven NPC deputies. ����Qiao said Macao will have a broad representative Selection Committee for the first government of the Macao SAR, so it is appropriate to form the electoral council from the Chinese citizens in the Selection Committee. ����Moreover, the Macao members of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and members in the Macao's Legislative Council are also eligible to join the electoral council, he said, but these Macao residents must be Chinese citizens. ����Qiao said Macao's deputies to the NPC should become members of the electoral council, to ensure a smoothly run operation. ����However, Macao's NPC deputies cannot become members of the electoral council or join the Selection Committee if they run for the Macao SAR's chief executive, he noted. ����The afore-mentioned method prescribed in the draft is only applicable to the election of the Macao SAR's deputies to the Ninth NPC, he stressed. ����In referring to the election procedure, Qiao cited the draft which stipulates that the NPC Standing Committee will be responsible for convening the first meeting of the electoral council to elect a nine-member presidium that will be responsible for chairing the electoral council. ����The electoral council will then draw up a specific method for the election, and each candidate can be recommended by at least ten members of the electoral council, he said. ����The election of the Macao SAR's deputies to the Ninth NPC will be conducted by means of a secret ballot, and the number of the candidates will be 20 to 50 percent more than the number of the NPC deputies to be elected. ����The presidium will announce the result of the election, and report those elected to the qualifying monitoring committee of the NPC Standing Committee for confirmation, Qiao said, adding that the opinions of Macao's NPC deputies and members of the CPPCC National Committee have been sought when the draft was drawn up. HomeNews 1999-01-30 Page2 Full Story in Chinese