New Territories East by-election: pro-government camp ‘will change rules if it wins poll’
Win for Chow in today’s by-election would mean Beijing loyalist majority in both halves of house
It is “beyond doubt” the Hong Kong government will ask the legislature to rewrite internal rules to limit filibuster if Holden Chow Ho-ding wins the by-election today and helps the pro-establishment camp get a majority, an ex-minister has said.
“How would the government give up the golden chance?,” former secretary for the civil service Wong Wing-ping told the Sunday Morning Post a day ahead of the New Territories East poll. “That will be the only chance for the government to amend the rules and procedures as it is unlikely for the pro-establishment camp to get a geographical constituency majority in the [general] election in September.”
READ MORE: New Territories East by-election is a Hong Kong Legco poll like no other
If Chow, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, beats pro-democracy rivals Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, of the Civic Party, and Edward Leung Tin-kei, of Hong Kong Indigenous, more than half of the 35 geographical constituency seats will be controlled by the pro-establishment camp.
Together with the functional constituency majority, it is now possible for any changes to the Legislative Council rules of procedure to be affirmed by the majority of lawmakers from both halves of the house.
Most pan-democrats have worried that if the filibuster rules were limited, they would lose what they regarded as their “most powerful ammunition against legislative tyranny”.
While pro-establishment veterans have called it unlikely for the government to seek a rule rewrite – an apparent move to calm worries that might boost votes sympathetic to the pan-democratic camp – Wong said the grounds they used were irrelevant.
