HONG KONG Thu Nov 6, 2014 5:21am EST
(Reuters) – A leader of Hong Kong’s student protests called on Thursday for a respected intermediary to help arrange a trip to Beijing where the students want to make their case to China’s leaders for greater democracy in their city.
Protesters, who have occupied some of Hong Kong’s most economically and politically important districts for nearly six weeks, are frustrated with the city government’s inability to negotiate and are hoping to send a delegation to Beijing.
“To make the conversation become a reality we need to find a ‘middleman’ such as Tung Chee-hwa or Rita Fan who can make the arrangements and make the trip workable,” Hong Kong Federation of Students’ (HKFS) leader Alex Chow told reporters.
Tung is a former Hong Kong chief executive while Fan is a former president of the city’s legislative assembly and a delegate to China’s largely rubber stamp parliament.
Chow said the city government was incapable of resolving the standoff over the protesters’ demands for greater democracy and only Beijing could do so.
“That is why we think a visit to Beijing is needed,” he said.
China has ruled the former British territory since 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula which allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland.
The protesters, led by a restive generation of students, are demanding fully-democratic elections for the city’s next chief executive in 2017, not the vote between pre-screened candidates that Beijing has said it will allow.
