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Legislative Council of Hong Kong
OpinionComment
Mike Rowse
Mike Rowse

Opinion | Legco’s past and future: Hong Kong must examine what both camps got wrong

  • There is an effort now to blame the 2019 unrest on outsiders. How much better it might have been if the patriots had done their job and set the government right on the extradition bill
  • As for the pan-democrats, their failure to condemn outright the violence revealed a lack of leadership

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Pro-democracy and pro-government lawmakers scuffle over access to the Legislative Council chamber on May 11, 2019, amid a broader clash over controversial amendments to Hong Kong’s extradition laws. Photo: AP
Mike Rowse

Enactment of the national security law, and implementation of the extensive political reform package, have raised some fundamental questions about future representation in the Legislative Council and how it will function.

Much of the attention recently has been focused on the outcome of the Democratic Party’s special meeting late last month. In effect, the party made no decision on whether to field candidates in the December polls.

Rather, it would be left to individual members to decide whether they wished to participate, then the party would meet to consider whether they could run.

It is easy to mock this lack of decisiveness. Characters as diverse as veteran Democratic Party member Fred Li Wah-ming and Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor have raised the question of why a political party should exist if it was not contesting elections.

In a recent discussion of the subject on RTHK’s Backchat, former legislator Christine Loh Kung-wai drew four conclusions: the party was keeping its options open; we were returning to the pre-1997 situation where individuals could do well; it was not necessary to be a political party to have influence (NGOs could, too); and, the voters’ perspective would be critical.

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Hong Kong's revamped electoral system bolsters pro-Beijing influence in key decision-making bodies

Hong Kong's revamped electoral system bolsters pro-Beijing influence in key decision-making bodies

Whether an individual wishes to run, or a party wishes to field candidates, they will have to decide where they stand on the political spectrum and how to describe themselves. In the past we used “pro-government” and “opposition”. These will not be good enough in the new era.

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