Now that it is summer, all major political parties are making intense preparations for the upcoming LegCo elections according to previous election years’ routine. But last year, Beijing made several decisions for Hong Kong without giving Hong Kongers a say. First, it imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong. Then it delayed the LegCo elections originally scheduled for last September. This year, it gifted Hong Kong a “political reform” package. The seats of the Election Committee have been brought back from their graves. A “candidate eligibility review committee” will be established out of nowhere and be placed above the candidates. And we do not have to mention the geographical constituencies, which used to be the most representative of public opinion. Now they have been altered beyond recognition. With such a “perfected” electoral system, the pro-democracy camp’s internal debate has also changed. While the question in the past was how many slates of candidates they should field, they are now debating whether they should continue to take part in elections. Don’t forget that the primaries organized by the pro-democracy camp last year, something that is absolutely normal in any civilized society, have become the “crimes” of 47 people in new Hong Kong.

Such being the case, even the government is aware of society’s lack of enthusiasm about matters such as standing for election or going to the polls. Though it has eliminated the pan-democrats’ room for participation in the legislature, it does not seem to want the pro-establishment camp to be the only camp in contention. That’s why people ranging from government officials such as Carrie Lam, pro-establishment politicians such as Ronny Tong to the central government’s go-betweens have all been giving the pro-democracy camp – especially the Democratic Party – to understand that the democrats will still enjoy room for political participation in the new legislature. Anthony Cheung, former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party, even asked, “What is the point of having a political party if it does not participate in elections?” Cheung seems to have forgotten that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is his master, refused to participate in the National Assembly for Drafting the Constitution convened by the Nationalist government in 1946. The CCP also boycotted the Presidential, Legislative Yuan and National Assembly elections held in 1947 and 1948.

Whether a party should participate in an election depends entirely on the party’s objectives and the political environment at the time. For the pro-democracy camp, the most important question is “what can be achieved by participating in this election now?” The innocent ones such as Frederick Fung might think that being part of the furniture in the political scene has its values too. Those speaking on behalf of Beijing might even depict a legislature for the democrats in which they will still be able to put forward suggestions and exercise supervisory powers except concerning those “politically sensitive” matters. Even though they will not be allowed to advance the democratic cause, they can, at the very least, monitor bus fare increases, which is also a way to serve the public. But will a dictatorial regime really allow the opposition to handle concrete, bread-and-butter matters? Do not forget that even at the time when the pan-democrats still commanded a key minority in the legislature, they had little influence on the government’s policies on bread-and-butter issues. Owing to the inherent flaws of the political system, playing a supervisory role was an onerous task. Now that the room for participation in legislative matters has been further squeezed for the pan-democrats, why should the government treat the opposition with more respect than before? As for the pan-democrats, why should they trust the words of those constantly flip-flopping?

The reality is that we live in an age when political loyalty trumps everything, and not even a modicum of dissidence is allowed. Even a 30-year tradition of a two-hour candlelight vigil described as “ritualized” by some was treated by the government as the plague, so much so that it had to mobilizes an army of police officers to set up roadblocks before the three tunnels to search for candles. The June Fourth candlelight vigil has always been the most peaceful form of protest adopted by Hong Kongers, and it does not pose a threat to anything. But the government has chosen to suppress it nevertheless. So how can anyone be certain that the authoritarian regime will give the opposition any room for dissidence within the political system? Even if it does allow a handful of people in opposition into the legislature, they will be purely ornamental. Those who aspire to serve the public should ask themselves, “With such a political system, can they really achieve their other aspirations by drawing the red lines themselves and putting aside their politically sensitive demands for the time being?”

The more important question is what the authoritarian regime wants right now. It might not be the ornaments in the legislature that it wants. All it is looking for is “also-rans” that can prove the “credibility” of the elections. With an electoral system that is so distorted and the people so indifferent to elections, it is not guaranteed that the pro-democracy camp can win a seat in every geographical constituency, not to mention the possibility that many supporters of the camp might cast a blank vote in protest. Under such circumstances, it is not unlikely that the pro-democracy camp cannot even secure just half of the geographical constituency seats. But the authoritarian regime will then be able to claim that the voters have rejected “the opposition that causes disruptions to Hong Kong” and embraced “the constructive side”. The pan-democrats will be hard-pressed to explain the electoral outcome. After all, they will have injected legitimacy into the Hong Kong version of the People’s Congress themselves. The government can then flip-flop on the proposal it has put forward to the democrats, while the internal conflicts within the pro-democracy camp will deepen. With a trap as obvious as this, should our like-minded friends who genuinely want to serve the public think carefully about whether it is really worth making such a move?

(Lam Hoi is a journalist)

This article is translated from Chinese by Apple Daily.

Click here for Chinese version

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