The end of HK Democrats as we know
them By Lawrence Gray
HONG
KONG - The Hong Kong electoral system is supposedly a
proportional-representation system by which the results
reflect the percentage of voters voting for particular
individuals. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment
of Hong Kong (DAB), the main pro-Beijing party, though
dropping a percentage in the votes, actually managed to
increase its number of directly elected seats by three
to become the largest single party in the Legislative
Council, overtaking the opposition Democratic Party,
which increased its percentage of the votes, but now has
two fewer seats - nine- than after the last election.
Despite the faint whiff of electoral
jiggery-pokery, hinted at by missing ballot boxes, a
larger number of votes counted than ballots issued and a
mysterious delay between counting the votes and issuing
the results, most people sense that the result is a
plausible one. The Democrats might have won a few more
seats if they had been a bit sharper in working the
system, or a little more vigilant in their monitoring of
possible election fraud, but there is a general feeling
that the Democrats gave a lackluster performance.
One has only to glance at a typical DAB leaflet
- without any English in sight - to see how much better
the DAB presents itself. On the front is a picture of a
group of young, smiling candidates and activists who
happily wave the Chinese flag in an effort to sell
themselves as an image of the New China and the exciting
future that brings. What does the Democratic Party have
to offer? A tired-looking Martin Lee, who gives the
impression of having been there, bought far too many
T-shirts, and now would rather be retired and living in
some UK home.
The Democratic Party emerged from
a postwar generation of educated and professional people
such as lawyers, teachers and social workers who, with
the prospect of Hong Kong being handed over to China,
were united by a fear of what Beijing might do. They
were not natural politicians or activists, and gained
their support as much from what they were not as from
what they were. They received an immense boost from last
British governor Chris Patten's reforms before the
handover and managed to use the time to create a party
with deeper penetration into Hong Kong's society.
Szeto Wah, a nationalist and grassroots
campaigner, supplied the common touch, where Martin Lee
provided the more patrician component of the Democratic
face. They were at least recognizable, spoke clearly,
and garnered a certain amount of respect, but with Szeto
Wah retired and Martin Lee on the brink, it is difficult
to see any new faces emerging from the party's ranks
commanding the same authority. And despite its past
prestige, the party has been dogged by a lack of
organization and repeatedly failing to make effective
political capital out of opportunities that have come
its way.
Being largely from the educated
Anglophile elite, the Democrats' grassroots credentials
were not easy to generate, and being more used to
arguing their case within committees rather than on the
hustings, their public image was inevitably dull and
stuffy.
In many respects, dull and stuffy is
good in Hong Kong. Revolutionaries in the 1960s and
1970s had to distance themselves from Mao Zedong's Red
Guards as much as possible, and there is a body of
opinion in Hong Kong that repeatedly tells us that Hong
Kong people do not like the politics of confrontation.
One of the first things the DAB announced, on
discovering the results of the election, was that the
Hong Kong people had shown their dislike of
confrontational politics.
It might be hard to
equate the Democrats' best-known politician, Martin Lee,
with the concept of confrontation, but that is what the
DAB accuses him of. It may be this constant accusation
that pro-Beijing forces have thrown at him that has made
Lee and his party so determinedly dull. Emily Lau's
Frontier party was in many respects created as an
antidote. Lau is, if nothing else, shrill, aggressive
and always handy for a good quote in the media. Her
party, however, only has only one seat, hers. With her
as an example, the Democrats find it difficult to think
of any alternative to their dull and steady image.
There have been murmurings among the party
faithful that a younger, more vigorous lineup of
candidates willing to express their views more
forcefully would do the Democrats a world of good. But
the "Young Turks", as they are known, seem to have faded
away, either into the background or to other
organizations.
The scandal involving Democrat Ho
Wai-to, who was picked up by police in southern China
last month and sentenced to six months in prison for
consorting with a prostitute, probably had an electoral
effect, though perhaps not quite in the way one would
expect. It was not that he was caught with a prostitute
that shocked the people of Hong Kong but that he was
given six months without trial. The Democrats' decision
to ignore him and not make a political issue out of the
case was considered less judicious than
spineless.
It might have been unwise to make too
much political capital out of defending a man's right to
visit a prostitute, but businessmen in Hong Kong who
regularly do business on the mainland do so in fear of
arbitrary arrest on all manner of trumped-up charges.
Business disputes on the mainland can land a person
prison rather than merely being handed a stiff letter
from a lawyer.
The choice Hong Kong faces is one
between fighting Beijing to stop it introducing its
system of law or letting Hong Kong's common-law system
disintegrate. Ho's arrest could have provided the
Democrats an opportunity to clarify what is really at
stake for Hong Kong and pointed to something that Hong
Kong's population, with its increasing knowledge of the
mainland, is experiencing every day.
Yet one
suspects that for the respectable Democrats sex is to be
avoided at all costs, and although the question of the
rule of law is uppermost in the minds of the Hong Kong
people, if tainted with the smell of sweaty bed sheets,
the Democrats probably feared alienating their
traditional supporters. It is hard to read their minds,
but Beijing seems to have done so with consummate ease:
to ensure that his humiliation was complete, the Chinese
police released pictures of a half-naked Ho just three
days before the election in which he remained a
candidate. This seems to prove that while Beijing may
not be strong on logic, it does have strong powers of
suggestion, and it understands very well that
respectability is the key to the Democrats' strength and
their weakness.
The Democratic Party might be on
the wane, but the broad democratic front continues to
expand. More than 60% of the vote went to people calling
for more democracy and opposing Chief Executive Tung
Chee-hwa. One now sees the Article 45 Concern Group, a
snappy name for a political party if ever there was one,
with four seats in the Legislative Council (Legco). This
heavyweight legal team's electoral success definitely
points to the fear Hong Kong people have of the
mainland's lack of rule of law. Also voted into Legco in
this election was Albert Cheng, the aging shock-jock
who, under a hail of death threats from businessmen
connected to the mainland, was forced off the airwaves.
Cheng presents himself as the voice of the people and is
expected to provide a very lively opposition to the
government. Then there is everyone's favorite, "Long
Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, whose trademark Che Guevara
T-shirt and waist-length hair have provoked comments
from former Legco president Rita Fan that such attire is
inappropriate for sitting in the legislature. Perhaps
Leung's first act will be to be thrown out of Legco
because of his failure to wear a tie, at which point
expect a naked Albert Cheng to protest Long Hair's right
to dress as he pleases.
Despite what one might
think about these pro-democracy legislators, one cannot
say that they wish to avoid confrontation. If voter
behavior tells us anything, it is that more people are
willing to vote for troublemakers than before. How long
this will last is another matter. If the Legco proves to
be a lively place full of drama, we might see a shift
away from demands to elect the chief executive by direct
means and toward more immediate demands to do away with
functional constituencies and increase the effectiveness
of the legislature. The concept of an "executive-led"
government as outlined in the Basic Law may well be seen
as the real enemy rather than Beijing's insistence on
choosing the chief executive. But if Legco merely turns
into a playground for grandstanders, then it will
provide more fuel to the argument that the Chinese
cannot handle democracy.
Where the Democratic
Party will go from here is anybody's guess, but given
its lack of populist chutzpah, its resolutely
middle-class, middle-aged and somewhat Westernized power
base, it might find it increasingly difficult to
function as a coherent grouping in the face of a new
generation of voters who were largely educated
post-1997. The fact that Martin Lee was a thorn in the
side of the British colonial authorities is irrelevant.
And what are the Democrats saying that any of the more
colorful groups and individuals are not saying about
democracy, only better? Not a lot. At least, if they are
talking about anything else, it is not coming across.
The first thing Martin Lee said to the press after the
election was that he would rather have lost his seat
than won at the expense of throwing the party's tactical
voting scheme into chaos, causing Democrat Cyd Ho to
lose to the DAB. Leung Kwok-hung, on the other hand, got
straight to the point by announcing that the first thing
he is going to do is make sure the government does not
cut old-age pensions any further. What do the Democrats
have to say on that issue? Probably, if pressed, they
will put forth a lot of equivocal talk about having to
scrutinize the figures carefully to see where there is
room for cost-cutting and where one can make sure that
real need is catered to etc, thus being sensible,
reasonable, indecisive and unclear all in one go.
The ability to say "no" to an unelected
government loudly, repeatedly, and as publicly as
possible seems to go down well with a good slice of the
population, and if the Democrats can manage to do this
and to present themselves as much a part of a dynamic
New China as the DAB manages, then the party may well
have a future. Right now it looks less a leading light,
and more merely another small pressure group. This
leaves the democratic camp without a mass party with an
efficient election machine, a development that Beijing
cannot but welcome. But given the obvious bias of many
of Legco's new intake, what will emerge next is
anybody's guess.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
