The pan-democratic camp should cast aside its role as a mere opposition and embrace a 'ruling mentality' if it is to offer a suitable candidate to be the first chief executive elected by universal suffrage in 2017, one leading member of the coalition says.
'There are still five years to go. But at this moment I cannot see any potential candidate from our camp who thinks like a leader of a government,' Ronny Tong Ka-wah said. 'One needs not only popularity, but also pragmatism. Running for office is not like contesting a beauty pageant.'
Tong, a lawmaker and veteran barrister, co-founded the Civic Party in 2006 with the stated aim of becoming Hong Kong's ruling party.
Tong has become even more sceptical of populism since a row over an amendment he proposed to the copyright amendment bill.
The bill aims to extend copyright laws to cover electronic transmissions. Tong's proposal was that there should be an exemption for internet users creating and sharing parodies as long as they caused only trivial economic damage to the owners of the material. Tong believed his suggestion was a compromise.
But he came under fire from internet users who wanted a blanket exemption, and the Civic Party sided with them. Tong considered quitting the party and even leaving politics to return to legal practice.
'I realised giving up amounts to admitting failure to [complete] the three goals I set for myself when I co-founded the Civic Party,' he said. The first of those goals, a minimum wage, became law in 2010 and the second, a competition bill, looks set to be passed within days.