Opinion | Fix Hong Kong’s politics and we can fix its frustrations too

Many people around the world regard democracy dogmatically, treating it as a religious imperative, a human right, an inefficiency or a threat to power. The truth about democracy is that it is none of these; democracy is a governing tool, a system through which a government may realise the will of its people, a method of converting popular consensus into an effective governing mandate.

As Hong Kong struggles through months of the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill uprising, with anonymous police and masked protesters beating each other in the streets amid tear gas and Molotov flames, net satisfaction with the city’s government stands at negative 63 per cent points among Hongkongers, according to the Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme’s September polls. Satisfaction with Hong Kong’s political conditions is at negative 82 per cent.

It is not surprising, then, that people on both sides of the political spectrum become enraged whenever a local politician gives a public statement; more surprising is the fact that the most effective public statement Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has made throughout this conflict came in the form of strategically leaked private remarks about her supposedly restricted decision-making power.

Regardless of the so-called truth behind the palace intrigue, regardless of who is to blame for a Hong Kong in flames, the ineffectiveness of the city’s government is undeniable. With 30 out of 70 Legislative Council seats elected by “functional constituencies” – in most cases constituencies made up of a small number of corporate executives representing capitalist interests rather than human interests – it is not hard to see why. In a city of 7.39 million people, 43 per cent of the legislature is elected by 3 per cent of the population.

In this guild-like system of legislative government, many establishment politicians do not have to make any efforts to persuade or listen to the public during the processes of election and policymaking. Carrie Lam and the Executive Council have begun consulting the public through the government’s newly conceived “platform for dialogue”, but in order for the government to regain effectiveness, it must meaningfully include the people of Hong Kong in the legislative process.

This can be achieved through the realisation of the ultimate aim of Article 68 of Hong Kong Basic Law: “the election of all members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage”.

When every eligible Hong Kong voter is given an equal say in the legislative process, vested interests may lose some of their power over Legco, but of what use is absolute power over an absolutely ineffective legislature?