The Pro-Democratic primary debates premiered with the West Kowloon electoral district on Saturday night. People had expected Democratic Party’s Helena Wong to be besieged by the newbies, but if we take a step back, when was the last time the Pro-Democrats have had an open debate? Because of the lack of benign competition, everything has become personal, private enmity. I believe the supporters for democracy will offer their applause to all of the participants of the primaries, no matter the differences in political stance, aggressiveness of the retorts, and even when Nathan Lau repeated talked over Helena Wong during questioning, these were neither “dissolution” nor “brawls”, but a process towards greater unity.

When the mechanism of the primaries was being deliberated, many criticized that only large parties would gain from it because of their well-known candidates, and went as far as the twisted argument that the primaries are simply a political platform for the Pan-Democratic parties. From the point of view of the newbies, however, to be able to “challenge the boss” is a perfect opportunity to enter the public arena. From the online polls conducted by Singjai and Apple Daily following the Kowloon West debate, the well-regarded top 3s by the public were all newbies covering quite a wide range. Jimmy Sham is the Convener of League of Social Democrats and Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), Sunny Cheung was a lobbyist with the Hong Kong Higher Institutions International Affairs Delegation, Lawrence Lau is a lawyer who assists protestors. They are all running for the first time. Jimmy Sham is more well-known due to his position as CHRF’s convener, while the two are complete newbies who gained support from their performance at the debate. If newbies only hide behind their keyboards and repeated type “No progress towards democracy in the 30 years since the Handover”, never stepping away from “private enmity”, there is no way they would morph into leaders.

Hong Kong citizens have to be resolute in defending every aspect of their lives, from schools to public organizations to parliament of all levels, when confronted with the aggressive Chinese Communist Party. There is no guarantee for any political movements and more than often, the precious prize is on the political process rather than the results. 35+ is a goal that we strive towards. It will be challenging, but not the reason to give up. As every election in the past got closer, it was always shrouded by “defeatism” which guaranteed certain people who deemed everything useless, a mentality that an authoritarian regime is more than happy to see. “Fatalism” and “cynicism” are the final tricks to produce docile citizens even for a dictatorship that has authoritarian tools. Draconian law is like a knife at the throat which scares everyone; however, what truly tames the people to surrender is neither a carrot nor judicial violence, but “Defeatism”.

Last year’s District Council elections demonstrated a fierce public opinion tsunami that uprooted all hardcore Pro-Beijing campers from their seats. 90% of the District Council is controlled by Pan-Democrats, a first since the introduction of the District Council in 1985. If the LegCo election can maintain a 70% or above voting rate in geographical constituencies, Pan-Democrats could possibly secure 22 seats: An increase from 2 to 3 seats in Kowloon East, maintaining 4 seats in Kowloon West, an increase from 4 to 5 seats in New Territories West, keeping 6 seats in New Territories East, maintaining the existing 7 seats in functional constituencies, adding 1 seat in a District Council functional constituency, and maintaining 3 seats from “Super District Councillors”. This is already a total of 33 seats. For the remainder, it is by no means easy to secure 3 more seats from the other functional constituencies such as catering, architectural, surveying, planning and landscape, engineering, sports, performing arts, culture and publication. Yet given the protest movement over the past year and the pressing and forceful arrival of the National Security Law (NSL), would the neutral professionals remain asleep “Kong Pigs”? It is hard to say.

Some render primaries useless. If hundreds could be mobilized to participate in the elections, making international headlines after being disqualified for opposing the NSL, leading to full-fledged sanctions from the West, let’s just not assume the CCP is stupid. Once they see this, will they still disqualify all the candidates? That is a sure win for the democrats, and all they have to do is to split up those votes.

Really, this is not any so-called democratic primaries, but a Hongkongers’ Unified Movement.

(Lau Sai Leung is a political commentator based in Hong Kong and a former full-time member of the HKSAR Central Policy Unit.)

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