Hong Kong MPs reject controversial vote reform

Controversial election reform plans that sparked weeks of protests last year have been blocked by pro-democracy MPs in Hong Kong.

Twenty eight members voted against the Beijing-backed proposal after a lenghty debate yesterday.

The government needed at least 47 of the 70 MPs to vote in favour of the proposals, which sparked huge street protests in the former British colony last year.

At the last moment, most of the MPs from parties that support Beijing walked out of the legislature chamber and did not cast any votes.

The bill's defeat comes at the end of Hong Kong's most tumultuous year since Beijing took control in 1997 after a century and a half of British colonial rule.

China expressed regret over the defeat, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang saying that the result in the semi-autonomous region was something Bejing was "unwilling to see".

Mr Lu reiterated Beijing's backing of its proposals under which Hong Kong residents would have been able in 2017 to vote directly for the chief executive, but only after candidates had been vetted and approved by Beijing.

He said that since Hong Kong was part of China, the issue was a domestic one with no other countries permitted to intervene.

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Tens of thousands of people took to the streets last year to protest at the central government's election screening requirement.

Activists camped out for 11 weeks in major parts of the city to demand greater voter freedom, but were eventually forced to leave the streets as morale evaporated after Hong Kong's unpopular leader, Leung Chun-ying, refused to offer any concessions.

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The government had offered direct elections for the first time starting in 2017, but wanted all candidates to be screened by a 1,200-member panel of Beijing-friendly elites like the one that currently handpicks the leader.

Pro-democracy leaders said that meant Beijing was breaking its promise to eventually grant genuine universal suffrage to the city, a special administrative region of China with its own legal and financial system and civil liberties such as freedom of speech not seen on the mainland.

More: 'Protests made me proud to be a Hong Kong resident for the first time'