DRESSED in black and chanting “one man, one vote”, a quarter of a million people marched through Hong Kong yesterday to demand the full democracy promised when Britain handed back its former colony more than eight years ago.

But Donald Tsang, the Beijing-anointed Chief Executive, refused their demands, saying that reforms must proceed one step at a time.

The march to the heart of government was the biggest since 2.5 million-strong demonstrations in 2003 and last year, which shocked Beijing and resulted in the resignation this year of Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive.

The scale of yesterday’s protest will intensify pressure on Mr Tsang, a former civil servant, to accelerate measures to enable Hong Kong’s six million people to elect their own leader and all legislators.

Lee Wing-tat, head of the Democratic Party, the biggest opposition group in the semi-autonomous region, said: “He should reflect directly to the state leaders that there is a huge turnout, so they should rethink the package and let Hong Kong people have a timetable for universal suffrage.”

Mr Tsang has proposed to expand an 800-member committee of Beijing-backed elites that chooses the Chief Executive and to enlarge the sixty-seat legislature by ten members, of whom five would be directly elected.

Democrats say that would amount to a step backward for the full democracy spelled out under the Hong Kong constitution, known as the Basic Law, and say they will veto the Bill in a vote on December 21 unless Mr Tsang offers a timetable for democratic reform. Speaking late yesterday in a hastily convened news conference, Mr Tsang said: “There’s no room for change.” He appealed for the protesters’ support. “

I have listened to them and share their ideals. What I am proposing is a step forward towards democracy.”

A row over the timing of democratic reforms has dogged Hong Kong politics mainly because of the lack of a timetable for reform in the Basic Law.

Underscoring the depth of feeling, Anson Chan, the former number two official in Hong Kong and still one of the most popular and influential people in the territory, took part in the march.

She said: “I just feel there are moments in one’s life when you have to stand up and be counted. I believe democracy to be good for Hong Kong and in good time, when the time is ripe, it would also be good for my country.”

UNDER BRITAIN

Residents were not given the vote for much of Britain’s rule, with most power vested in the Governor. The colonial government introduced draconian laws to keep order during the Cultural Revolution. Direct elections took place in 1991 after the suppression in Tiananmen Square in 1989, with 18 of the 60 legislative seats directly elected, raised to 20 in 1995. Chris Patten, the last Governor, tried to introduce a democratic style by staging walkabouts.

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