Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying told media that if the government met pro-democracy protesters’ demands it would result in the city’s poorer people dominating elections.

In an interview with foreign media, carried in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the International New York Times, the embattled chief executive reiterated his position that free elections were impossible.

“If it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you’d be talking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than US$1,800 a month [hk$13,964.2],” Leung said in comments published by the WSJ, the FT and the INYT.