Radicals ride their luck

Over the past two weeks, chief executive-elect Leung Chun-ying has fired repeated salvos at radical pan-democratic lawmakers for their attempts to filibuster a bill on electoral reform measures.

Leung has even gone so far as to urge voters to reconsider whether to vote for these lawmakers in the Legislative Council election to be held in September.

But Leung's appeals and stern warnings seem to have fallen on deaf ears - at least among those determined to sabotage the bill - and his hope of mobilising voters to punish them at the ballot box appears to be politically unrealistic.

The filibuster is expected to take up most of Legco's time for the remainder of this week. Lawmakers are voting on some of 1,306 amendments filed by People Power lawmakers Albert Chan Wai-yip and Wong Yuk-man, who oppose the bill's proposal to ban legislators who quit midterm from standing in a by-election for a period of six months.

On Thursday lawmakers voted down 99 amendments and another 227 by the time voting ended at 10pm on Friday. Voting on the remaining 980 amendments will resume tomorrow, and is expected to take three more days.

On Saturday the High Court rejected League of Social Democrats legislator 'Long Hair' Leung Kwok-hung's application for a judicial review of Legco president Tsang Yok-sing's move to end the filibuster. Two days earlier, Tsang invoked for the first time powers in the Legco's rules of procedure to halt a 33-hour debate and force lawmakers to vote on the proposed amendments.