Hong Kong remains divided over forthcoming election reform

2015-03-13

Pedestrians and pro-democracy activists walk past tents at a protest site in Hong Kong's Admiralty district, Nov. 24, 2014. AFP

Political tensions in Hong Kong over controversial political reforms appeared to harden further this week, suggesting that there will be scant room for debate or criticism of the electoral arrangements laid down by Beijing.

Hong Kong's justice minister on Friday appeared to rule out a public referendum on a controversial electoral reform package to be unveiled next month ahead of a debate in the city's legislature, saying there were no provisions for such a popular vote in its laws.

"There is no legal basis for us to have a referendum. A referendum has no place in Hong Kong," justice secretary Rimsky Yuen told reporters.

Yuen's comments came after the chief pollster at the University of Hong Kong, Robert Chung, made the suggestion as a way to resolve the current political deadlock over the framework for the 2017 election for the city's chief executive.

Pan-democratic members, who hold 27 out of 60 seats in the city's Legislative Council (LegCo) have vowed to veto the plan, which was laid down in an Aug. 31 ruling by China's parliament that sparked more than two months of pro-democracy protests and the occupation of major highways.

Chung had said the referendum could persuade pan-democrats not to block the reforms, if the majority of Hong Kong people opposed their doing so.

The NPC ruled that while all five million of Hong Kong's voters will be allowed to cast a ballot in the 2017 race for chief executive, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates pre-selected by Beijing.

Occupy Central protesters and pan-democratic politicians, who won 54 percent of the popular vote in the last legislative elections, have dismissed the proposed reform package as "fake universal suffrage."

Pan-democratic Civic Party leader Alan Leong said on Friday that his party has yet to debate Chung's idea, but pointed to an unofficial referendum last June in which some 700,000 people said any electoral arrangements that didn't meet international standards – including the right to be nominated for elections – should be ruled out.

'Inappropriate' term

Beijing and Hong Kong officials have repeatedly said that neither the calls for public nominations nor the June referendum have any basis in the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Rita Fan, a veteran pro-establishment politician and Hong Kong delegate to the NPC, said the word "referendum" should be avoided, as it is considered sensitive in Beijing.

"This word you use, referendum, is going to get a sensitive reaction," Fan told reporters on the sidelines of the NPC on Friday.

"The central government hasn't just said once; it's said many times that Hong Kong isn't a sovereign territory, it's just a district [of China]," Fan said.

"The word 'referendum' is inappropriate."

Pro-democracy lawmaker Frederick Fung told RFA that a referendum could be used to resolve the current political stalemate, however.

"It's not just pan-democrats who need to listen to the overall direction of public opinion; the establishment needs to listen to it as well," Fung said.

"If this reform package is accepted [by the public], then they should proceed with it. If not, they should come up with another one," he said.

"I think that's pretty reasonable."

But NPC delegate Cheng Yiu-tung said there is now "no time" for a referendum.

"I don't think that such a procedure would be very reliable, and it's status in law is also dubious," Cheng told reporters.

"I think if we did that, it would only lead to more strife in Hong Kong."

"The government's reform package will be released soon, so there really isn't time, anyway."

'Umbrella Movement'

Many who took part in the "Umbrella Movement," which saw hundreds of thousands pour onto Hong Kong's streets at its height, said they aren't just fighting for public nominations, but against the steady erosion of the city's core values and freedoms, citing a slew of violent attacks on outspoken Hong Kong journalists in recent years.

But Chinese officials instead expressed concern over the lack of "patriotism" among Hong Kong's young people, renewing calls for Communist Party-approved citizenship study in the city's schools, which was rejected following mass protests in 2012.

NPC president Zhang Dejiang called last week for more "patriotic" education in Hong Kong following the "illegal acts" of the Occupy movement, which Beijing has linked to incitement by "hostile foreign forces."

The Hong Kong Federation of Students on Thursday made public its accounts from the protests, in a bid to refute claims of overseas support.

According to the federation's accounts, it spent around U.S. $28,300 on equipment, leaflets and supplies, including food.

Its leader Tommy Cheung told reporters that the federation had received more than U.S. $77,000 in donations from Hong Kong residents, most of them coming in at the time of the class boycott in late September.

Fees from member unions made up the rest of its income.

"The disclosure serves as a rebuttal to those who uglify Occupy as a foreign-funded campaign and accuse us of receiving millions in illicit donations from unknown sources," Cheung was quoted as saying by the English-language South China Morning Post.

Hong Kong was promised a "high degree of autonomy" and the preservation of traditional freedoms of speech and association under the terms of its 1997 handover from Britain to China.

Britain's Foreign Office said in an annual human rights report on Thursday that Hong Kong's future would be "best served by a transition to universal suffrage."

Any political reform package should "meet the aspirations of the people of Hong Kong, offering a genuine choice in the election of the Chief Executive, paving the way for further reform, including of the Legislative Council in 2020," the report said.

Chinese officials have said that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is "void" and that Beijing answers to no one in the exercise of its sovereignty in Hong Kong.

Reported by Lin Jing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Zhang An'an for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website