HONG KONG: Almost eight months after protesters occupied Hong Kong streets in a fight for democracy that captured world attention, lawmakers are finally tackling a China-backed proposal to decide the city’s political future.

Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam opened debate in the Legislative Council on Wednesday by urging lawmakers to pass the bill to govern the city’s first direct chief executive election in 2017. Democratic lawmakers have so far remain united against the measure, which would give a committee of local elites the power to screen candidates, and members on both sides have predicted its defeat.

“What you are deciding today is not just one among the 10,000 documents that come before you,” Lam told lawmakers. “What you choose today will determine whether five million people will have right to vote.”

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying needs at least four of 27 pro-democratic lawmakers to support a proposal that brought thousands of protesters into the streets for three months last year.

While the student-led occupation plunged the Asian financial hub into the worst political crisis since returning to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, demonstrators ultimately failed to convince the Communist Party to allow fully free elections.

The plan’s defeat would deepen a divide in the legislature that has stalled bills and delayed this year’s budget by six weeks. Passing it could trigger further unrest with some leaders of last year’s protests pledging a return to the streets, although recent rallies have been smaller.

Advocates from both sides gathered under the searing sun outside the legislative chamber on Wednesday, waving banners and shouting slogans. At one point, proponents of the measure blared the Chinese national anthem while opponents tried to drown it out with “Raise Your Umbrella,” an anthem of last year’s so- called Umbrella Movement protests.

Some in Hong Kong’s international business community fret that too little has been done to address the sense of disenfranchisement that brought more than 100,000 protesters out at the height of the Occupy Central movement.

“People have developed a perception that the system is biased against the small guy and in favor of the big guy and that didn’t used to be the case,” said Paul Serfaty, a director of Asian Capital Partners Group, an investment bank that specializes in mergers and acquisitions.