Hong Kong Presents Plan for Elections, Offering Little to Democrats
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Version 0 of 1. HONG KONG — Hong Kong entered a new bout of struggle over its political future on Wednesday, as the local government offered only minor changes to an election overhaul plan that set off months of pro-democracy demonstrations last year. Opposition lawmakers denounced the latest proposals, signaling the start of a political contest that will make or break the government’s plans. The Hong Kong government has wagered that it can persuade enough city legislators, and members of the public, to accept the latest proposal as the best deal that can be had from the Chinese Communist Party, whose leader, Xi Jinping, has repeatedly condemned liberal democracy as anathema to Chinese values. “It’s not possible to satisfy everyone in just one proposal,” the chief secretary of the Hong Kong government, Carrie Lam, said in presenting the election plan to the city’s Legislative Council, which will vote on whether to make it law. “We should weigh very carefully whether the passage of these proposals or a standstill in constitutional development will be a more favorable outcome for the overall and long-term interests of Hong Kong,” Ms. Lam said. But as she spoke, about two dozen pro-democracy lawmakers walked out of the legislative chamber and condemned the proposal as a betrayal of Hong Kong’s democratic hopes. “The government’s proposal allows a small circle of people to control the nomination process, hence control the election outcome, turning the people into voting tools,” one of them, Alan Leong, declared to Ms. Lam before he walked out. Protest groups and student leaders also scorned the plan as falling far short of the open democratic vote for the city’s leader, or chief executive, that they have demanded as a legal and moral right. They vowed to renew the push for expanded voting rights that last year brought tens of thousands of people into Hong Kong’s streets, in protests that blocked major thoroughfares for months. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Legislative Council building on Wednesday to denounce or support the election proposals, and scuffles broke out between the two sides. “If we accept fake democratic reform it is worse than no democratic reform,” said Tam Tak-chi, a 43-year-old protester. “If we accept fake democratic reform, the Chinese Communist government and the Hong Kong Communist government will say, ‘Oh, we give you true democracy, we gave you everything, don’t ask for more.’” Pro-government supporters, many of them older and waving Chinese national flags, countered with their own warnings. “We want a peaceful and stable Hong Kong, not chaos,” said one, who gave only her surname, Wu. As announced last year, the government’s proposed rules would give residents a direct vote for chief executive for the first time, starting in 2017, but only from among two or three candidates approved by a nomination panel dominated by people beholden to Beijing. That would effectively exclude candidates unacceptable to the Chinese government. In one modification, aspiring candidates would need the support of at least 120 members of the 1,200-person nomination committee; the panel would then choose two or three of those candidates to run in the general election. That 120-vote threshold is lower than under the current system, which involves an election committee dominated by pro-Beijing politicians and businessmen but no direct public vote. The tweak in the nomination rules would open the way for some electioneering before the panel chooses the final candidates, said Simon Young, a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong who has made his own proposals for electoral change. But there has been little serious study of broader potential compromises that might satisfy most voters, Mr. Young said. “It just seems like there’s been zero fruitful discussion of issues, and if anything, the degree of distrust has gotten worse,” he said. The latest phase of Hong Kong’s political tug of war pits a government widely disliked by residents, but solidly backed by Beijing, against a pro-democracy movement weighed down by disappointment, dissension and flagging energy. Between them stand the 27 pro-democracy lawmakers, or “pan-dems,” as they are known, who could stymie the proposal. “I can’t see any room for compromise on the proposal,” Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, who has firmly supported Chinese government policies toward the city, said Wednesday morning. Opposition groups have demanded that those lawmakers stay united behind their earlier vow to vote against the plan. A coalition of protest groups that supported the street occupations last year warned democratic lawmakers on Tuesday against accepting the government plan or holding secret negotiations over it. Mr. Young, the law professor, said after reading the government’s proposal that the pro-democratic lawmakers were certain to reject it. “There’s nothing in here that would attract them to bite on a compromise,” he said. But the Hong Kong government has said it will marshal public pressure to try to coax at least four of them to vote for the proposal, which would provide the two-thirds majority in the Legislative Council needed to pass it into law. That vote appears likely to happen before mid-July, when the council goes into recess. “It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Emily Lau, a Democratic Party member of the Legislative Council, said in an interview earlier this week, describing the pressures on liberal lawmakers. Many people fear deepening disorder and government dysfunction if no electoral changes are passed, she said. “But if we do support an undemocratic package, we’d pay another cost,” she said. Government ministers have said that blocking the plan would discredit the democratic opposition in the eyes of voters, who could punish them in elections next year. And some democratic politicians have argued that it would be better to pass the proposal and then push for more changes. Rejecting it would mean that Hong Kong’s leader would continue to be chosen through the current election committee, dominated by politicians and businessmen who heed the Chinese government’s wishes. Public sentiment in Hong Kong appears torn. Some opinion polls indicate that most residents want lawmakers to pass the proposal, even if it is not ideal. Other polls have found that a majority supports blocking election proposals that would effectively exclude candidates who are at odds with Beijing. But all impartial polls have shown that a strong majority of young residents reject the government’s blueprint and want a more competitive election process. Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to China in 1997, but the city has retained its own laws and protections, although mainland Chinese influence over the economy and the media has deepened. The so-called Occupy protests erupted last year after the Chinese legislature, echoing Communist Party policy, laid down the guidelines that Hong Kong is now proposing in modified form. In late September, a failed police effort to clear student demonstrators from around the city government complex using tear gas and pepper spray brought tens of thousands more residents out in protest. The demonstrations consolidated into street occupations in three busy neighborhoods, which as the weeks passed were festooned with posters and images of yellow umbrellas, the protesters’ makeshift shield and a symbol of what some called the Umbrella Revolution. But many protesters’ initial hopes that they could win concessions evaporated, and the police broke up the increasingly dejected protest camps in mid-December. The demonstrators vowed to go on with their struggle, but since then the protests have largely been in abeyance, and a march on Feb. 1 failed to draw the numbers organizers had hoped for. Protest leaders said public anger over the election plans was likely to build in the coming weeks, although many have conceded that any demonstrations are unlikely to reach the same high pitch as last year. “It’s the historic responsibility for my generation, the youth generation, to make sure the proposal is struck down,” Joshua Wong, the 18-year-old student who emerged as a leading voice in the protest movement last year, said outside the Legislative Council building after the government announced its plan. “If some pan-democrats try to shift to supporting the government proposal, I believe there will be civil disobedience,” he said. “Whether it will be street occupations or occupation of government buildings, we can’t be sure yet.” |