Is the dream of democracy in Hong Kong a psychedelic fantasy? That is what may be implied by the choice of LSD as the acronym of the territory's most radical advocate for universal suffrage, the League of Social Democrats. It is also the only conclusion one can sensibly draw from the tortuous to-ing and fro-ing in Hong Kong over the best way of reaching full democracy by 2020.
Last month Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's bow-tie-wearing chief executive, proposed reforms aimed at fractionally democratising the oligarchic system inherited from British colonialism. The new rules would govern elections in 2012 for Mr Tsang's replacement and for the next Legislative Council, or Legco.
Legco, with its echo of the children's toy, sounds like a pretend parliament in which democracy is constructed one tiny brick at a time. That about sums it up. As things stand, half of Legco's 60 seats are nominated through so-called “functional constituencies”, by just 211,000 people representing professional and business elites. Hong Kong's 3.2m ordinary voters get to choose the other 30. In 2004 elections, pro-democratic candidates received 60 per cent of the vote but only 40 per cent of the seats.