Chief Executive Donald Tsang held his first televised debate on the hot-button issue with the leader of one of the main opposition parties in a last-ditch effort to win public support before the city's legislature votes on the proposed political reforms on June 23.

The city, which returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997, has a separate legal and administrative system, but its constitutional development falls under the remit of Beijing.

At present, only half of the legislature's 60 seats are directly elected. The rest are picked by so-called "functional constituencies", which consist mostly of pro-Beijing professional elites.

Hong Kong's chief executive is chosen by an election committee whose 800 members are handpicked by Beijing.

Under the latest proposal, the government wants to raise the number of lawmakers to 70 and increase the number of election committee members to 1,200 in 2012 to pave the way for eventual universal suffrage.

"We are short of a few votes, without which the package cannot be passed," Tsang said at the start of the one-hour debate.

Tsang urged the public not to allow a repeat of the political reform debacle in 2005, when the government failed to secure the passage of a similar plan.

"Hong Kong will be doomed to stay put," he said.

However, he repeatedly dodged questions from Audrey Eu, leader of the Civic Party, who asked how he could ensure that Hong Kong would ultimately have universal suffrage by supporting his reform plan.

"How can your package bring us towards the ultimate goal of universal suffrage? I know you are Christian but we can't just rely on trust. Where is the blueprint? Is it like a promise written in water?" Eu asked.

"If you make a wrong step, there is no turning back. I would rather have a stand-still than making a wrong step," Eu said as she made an emotional conclusion to her speech.

Opinion polls showed that Eu, who is also a veteran barrister, won the debate by a wide margin.

Meanwhile, the so-called "Post 80s" group, formed mainly by university students born in the 1980s, staged a protest against the proposal outside the Legislative Council building with pro-democracy political parties.

"We demand that the government withdraw the meaningless proposal, which has dodged key issues such as the abolition of the functional constituencies," Fred Lam, a leader of the group, told AFP.

The rally gained momentum after the debate, with hundreds of young campaigners chanting slogans and singing pro-democracy songs.

The Post 80s said they hoped to attract thousands of citizens to join their sit-in on June 23, when the lawmakers cast their vote on the reform plan.

The government is facing an uphill battle to secure the backing of a two-thirds majority or 40 lawmakers, for its reforms.

The 23 pro-democracy lawmakers have indicated they would block the proposal as it does not give a clear roadmap on how and when universal suffrage could be achieved.

In the past few weeks, the government has mounted an unprecedented territory-wide campaign named "Act Now" to win public support for the reform package.

Beijing has said that, at the earliest, universal suffrage could be ushered in for the chief executive in 2017 and the legislature in 2020.

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