PiSigma
"the engineer"
I guess universal suffrage also does not exist in Canada. Since the Canadian Senate is by appointment. Only the lower chamber is by vote, and typically only 30% vote for the majority government party at best. So a majority government is voted in by a minority.Universal suffrage does not exist in Hong Kong. Only half of the legislative's seats are directly elected. The other have come from the functional constituencies. The functional constituences are not representative of Hong Kong's electorate as a whole because they're not based on member size.
For example, the Finance FC has less than 200 voters. Whereas the Education FC has upwards of 100,000 voters. But each FC has a seat in the legislative.
Also, if you look at every single election since the handover, the pro-Beijing camp has never gained a majority of seats in the directly elected half, but has always had a large majority in the FCs. I think in the last election the pro-Beijing camp got 16 directly elected seats, but 22 of the FC selected-seats. The pan-Democrats and Localists got 19 directly elected seats but just 7 FC seats.
(3 DC seats to the pan-Democrats and 2 DC seats to the pro-Beijing camp.)
Also there still aren't direct elections for the Chief Executive. The CE is appointed by a committee drawn almost exclusively from the Functional Constituencies. When Beijing proposed a "reform" package, they wanted that same committee to vet all candidates, there could be no more than 3 people running in the election and all candidates would need approval from at least half the committee. So any candidate that wasn't a 100% Beijing loyalist could be vetoed without the HK public ever having a chance to vote for them.
That shows the system is biased in the favour of the HK Establishment and against the interests of the voters as a whole. Therefore it's hardly surprising if the protesters in Hong Kong are calling for actual universal suffrage.
A small number have. And that's after decades of failed promises from the HK Establishment and Beijing over political reform.
"Hey, don't worry, reform's around the corner."
"Listen, we know you've had to wait a long time. We promise universal suffrage is coming soon."
"Well it's not the best reform package, but it's just a stepping-stone to universal suffrage.
"If you go home and stop protesting, we might be able to look at political reform again. But we don't promise it will be what you want."
It's been over 20 years since the handover. Beijing's stalled enough on universal suffrage.
And pro-Beijing officials have also threatened civilians who don't agree with their policies from being banned from standing for election, or threatened companies who didn't publicly endorse the new national security legislation.
People on both sides have tried to use coercion to get their way. Which is why the best way to resolve everyone's grievances is by political reform and direct elections for all legislative seats and the Chief Executive, letting the public decide..
Universal suffrage means each citizen gets a vote, doesn't say how the vote is formulated in parliament