Young-gun politicians should never give up
As the saying goes: 'Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.' Yet, one would expect members of the current Legislative Council, dominated by baby boomers, to give way to younger ones. Judging from the lists of registered candidates for the September election, this is not happening. It seems that the great majority of incumbents never want to retire.
In the geographical constituencies, veterans each lead a long string of young aspirants, mostly district councillors in the respective areas. These 'pillars' are there to secure votes. Many, especially those not in the second spot on the list, know very well that they will never get elected. In fact most, if not all, district councillors are 'pillars' anyway, even if they are not on a list. One of the stated purposes of having district councils is to provide a training ground for future political leaders. It seldom works, and our councillors are condemned to forever be lower life forms on the political ladder. Very few can escape this assigned destiny, no matter how hard they try.
This year, there are a handful of lucky ones heading their own lists. Tanya Chan (Civic Party, Hong Kong Island) and Starry Lee Wai-king (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, Kowloon West) are especially fortunate, as their seats in the legislature are more or less assured. For the rest, the incumbents always have the advantage over newcomers.
There is a similar situation in the functional constituencies. Here, the old incumbents are invariably being challenged by younger candidates. Again, it's a safe bet that most of the old faces will be back in October, when the next session starts.
Universal suffrage for Legco will happen in 2020, and we have to get ready for that. It is now apparent that we desperately need new blood in our political arena, and a more efficient training ground and way to mobilise people. Currently, things are far from satisfactory.
The enlarged political appointment system is supposed to be an integral part of the structure. Gary Chan Hak-kan (DAB, New Territories East) is always cited as an example. Yet, politically appointed government officials earn up to six times as much as legislators. It does not take a genius to figure out that this is not going to work.
Another solution often put forward is to increase the number of seats in Legco. As stipulated by the central government, these new seats have to be split equally between the geographical and functional constituencies. The newly created functional seats could then be all taken up by district councillors through an indirect election. This, however, is a one-off solution. Unless we can increase the number of seats in every election, a bottleneck will always exist. This is clearly not the way out.
The real problem lies not in our election system, but in how the candidates evolve within the parties. Despite all the war cries for democracy, and fair and transparent elections, currently the candidates are more or less decided by the leaders of their respective parties. As incumbents stand a much better chance of getting re-elected, this is used to justify why they are therefore always at the top of the list - unless they choose to bow out. This is also the weapon commonly used to squeeze out aspirants from different parties in the same political bloc.
But, as anyone is entitled to enter the race, many determined young politicians choose to defy this implicit ground rule. That is why the competition is so keen in this election. But, without party resources, including the 'pillar' support of councillors, they do not stand a chance. This is the nature of the election game: if you do not join the race, you will never get started. And, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Young politicians, one day, the world will be yours. It will soon be 2020, get ready to take it.
Lau Nai-keung is a member of the Basic Law Committee of the NPC Standing Committee, and also a member of the Commission on Strategic Development
