By tabling a draft resolution on its electoral reform blueprint in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has taken another crucial step toward realizing universal suffrage in the city.

Democracy eluded Hong Kong during its one-and-a-half-century colonial era. All of its 28 colonial governors throughout those decades were appointed by the British monarch, who had the exclusive power to appoint the members of the colonial legislature.

Implementing the reform would mean in the space of merely 20 years - between 1997 and 2017 - Hong Kong would have moved from having a British governor "parachuted in" by the British monarch to a leader chosen by its 5 million eligible voters.