Hong Kong's civilian groups and parties Sunday launched a signature campaign to show their support to government's constitutional reform package to be voted on Dec. 21.

Members of the Grand Coalition Concerning Political Reform, consisting 11 civilian groups and parties, fanned out at 700 sites to collect signatures of citizens in support of the constitutional reform plan by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

At one downtown site, Cheng Yiu-tong, president of the Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), signed his name on a large clothbanner, which reads "Support Constitutional Reform Plan, Marching Toward Universal Suffrage". FDU is a member of the Grand Coalition Concerning Political Reform.

The campaign was aimed to express Hong Kong people's will to deal separately the adoption of the constitutional reform package and the timetable for universal suffrage, said Cheng.

Some people also joined an online signature campaign by browsing the websites of three Chinese-language newspapers, Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao and Sing Tao Daily. It is reported that on Saturday alone, thousands signed up on the websites

The coalition expected to collect more than 200,000 signatures over two weeks.

The Legislative Council (LegCo) of the HKSAR will on Dec. 21 vote on the plan, which doesn't have a timetable for universal suffrage.

Having conducted broad consultations, the HKSAR government in October published the constitutional reform blueprint, which stipulates ways to select Hong Kong Chief Executive in 2007 and form the LegCo in 2008.

The constitutional reform plan is a democratic plan and will help Hong Kong march forward to the final goal of universal suffrage, the HKSAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang said earlier.

He also said if the package is unfortunately voted down by LegCo, the constitutional development for the selection of Hong Kong Chief Executive in 2007 and the formation of the LegCo in 2008 will come to a halt.

(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2005)