HONG KONG - Hong Kong Chief Executive C Y Leung submitted Tuesday a report to China's top legislature, initiating the five-step process of Hong Kong's constitutional development.

The report focuses on whether there is a need to amend the methods for selecting Hong Kong's Chief Executive (CE) in 2017 and for forming the Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2016.

According to the report, Leung takes the view that there is a need to amend the method for selecting the CE in 2017 in order to attain the aim of universal suffrage, while Annex II to the Basic Law concerning the method for forming the LegCo in 2016 need not be amended.

On the whole, the community of Hong Kong is generally eager to see the implementation of universal suffrage for the C E election in 2017, and generally agree that successful implementation of universal suffrage for the 2017 election will bring about positive impact on the policy implementation, economy,and livelihood matters in Hong Kong in the future, and hence sustained development and long-term prosperity and stability for Hong Kong, according to the report.

The report said that the mainstream opinion is that Article 45 of the Basic Law has already made clear that the power to nominate CE candidates is vested in the Nominating Committee (NC) only, and that the NC has a substantive power to nominate.

Such power of nomination must not be undermined or bypassed directly or indirectly, said the report.

There are quite a number of views that the NC should be of the same size as the current election committee - 1,200 members; and if there is a need to increase its size, the total number of members should not exceed 1,600.

There are also quite a number of views that a person contending for nomination has to obtain support from at least a certain proportion of members of the NC in order to formally become a candidate, so as to demonstrate that such a person has cross- sector support in the NC; to reflect the democratic principle of " the majority rule," and to fulfill the requirement of the NC to nominate as an organization.

Regarding the number of CE candidates, there are two major views, the reported noted.

One of the views, it said, is that there is a need to ensure the solemnity of the election and allow voters to have sufficient understanding of the candidates' manifestoes and missions, and hence it is necessary to fix the number of candidates.

The other view is that there is no need to restrict the number of candidates.

"Of those who consider that there a need to set the number of candidates, some suggest to set the number of candidates at two to three since the number of candidates in the past CE elections was around two to three; while some put forward other numbers of candidates," the report said.

The community of Hong Kong generally agrees that the post of Chief Executive must be taken up by a person who "loves the country and loves Hong Kong", it said.