MACAO -- The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will elect 12 deputies to the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature, on Dec 12, according to a decision by the presidium meeting of the Conference for Electing Deputies of the Macao SAR to the 14th NPC on Saturday.

The electoral conference held its first plenary session earlier in the day, which was attended by 469 members. An 11-member presidium including Ho Iat Seng and Ho Hau Wah was elected to preside over the conference according to a method for the Macao SAR to elect deputies to the 14th NPC.

Yang Zhenwu, secretary-general of the NPC Standing Committee who came to Macao to preside over the election work, said that electing NPC deputies in the Macao SAR is a practice of "one country, two systems," reflecting that Macao compatriots are the masters of their own affairs.

Yang stressed the need to perform the duties as enshrined in the Constitution and the Macao SAR Basic Law and to be aware of the bottom line of safeguarding national security.

Efforts should be made to ensure that patriotic deputies, who represent the wide public of Macao and have strong abilities to participate in and deliberate on state affairs, can be elected, Yang added.

At the presidium meeting, Ho Iat Seng was elected standing chairman of the presidium. The presidium decided the nomination of candidates for NPC deputies will run from Nov 22 to 28. The voting will take place on Dec 12 at the second plenary session of the electoral conference.

According to the election method, a total of 12 deputies are to be elected in Macao. Each member of the electoral conference is allowed to nominate no more than 12 candidates. Macao residents with Chinese citizenship aged 18 or above are eligible to contest for the candidacy, and they need to obtain at least 15 nominations from electoral conference members for their registration to be effective.