Civic Party to strike tactical deals for district council polls

The Civic Party and its allies will co-ordinate their lists of candidates for next year's district council elections to try to avoid fighting each other. But if clashes cannot be avoided, it will be left to voters to decide.

Party member Ronny Tong Ka-wah said he was not worried that co-ordination with allies would reduce the number of seats the party could win.

'We will explore and develop district council constituencies where our allies are not present,' Mr Tong said yesterday.

The district council elections, which are scheduled for the end of next year, will be the first electoral test for the party, which was formed in March.

The party will develop a mechanism in the first half of next year to determine which party representatives will contest the election.

Members interested in standing will inform the party by September 9 and the list will be exchanged with its allies the next day.

Party secretary Joseph Cheng Yu-shek said he expected the party, the Democratic Party and their allies to share a platform calling for universal suffrage.

Mr Cheng said the party had only four district councillors at present and it would be easy to double that number in next year's poll, but the party wanted to do much better than that in the elections.

He hoped the party could absorb more independent district councillors who are democracy advocates.

The party has also co-ordinated with allies to identify possible candidates to contest seats on the Election Committee to return the chief executive.

Mr Tong said the Civic Party was trying its best to get at least 100 nominations, which would earn the party the right to put forward a candidate to contest the chief executive poll next year.