For better or worse, the 'en masse resignation cum de facto referendum' political ploy has come and gone, and we are no closer to our democratic aspirations. But there is a HK$160 million lesson in this: just because someone calls an event 'en masse resignation', a 'de facto referendum' or an 'uprising', it doesn't make it so.
Too much talking muddles things up. My epiphany occurred a few months ago when a boy from my church, who attends primary school, asked me: 'How is it a 'resignation' if the 'resigned' are going to run for the same seats they plan to 'resign' from right after they 'resign' from them?' Eureka! His logic is so simple, and it makes perfect sense: they are not resignations, and the legislator-elects are due to be sworn in 'en masse' on Wednesday.
How about the de facto referendum? What happened yesterday was not a referendum - not in fact, theory or practice. The criterion of a 'single issue' was not fulfilled, and we had the problem of 'single issue, single position but two candidates' in one district. How, exactly, does 'vote yes or yes' work? Then we had a constituency with eight people on the ballot, running on weird platforms like getting rid of triads, prostitution and drugs. If the whole purpose was to let people choose one thing or the other, how can that choice be made? Most of us would probably prefer both more democracy and less of triads, prostitution and drugs at the same time. And how exactly does one vote away triads, et al?
Add that to our lingering confusion over what constitutes 'winning' the referendum. The goalposts have been moved so many times - with such bad logic - that it's all pig Latin to me. It is almost impossible to remember if the organisers have decided, finally, on a measuring stick. No one can be forced to run or not run in an election, meaning that without proper referendum legislation, there can be no de facto referendum.
Then there has been a lot of talk about Legislative Council president Tsang Yok-sing possibly resigning in order to cast a vote in the legislature if that's what it takes to pass a package of grave importance to Hong Kong. He had earlier vowed not to vote while presiding over the legislature. Then he said if an issue was important enough, he would resign out of principle - to live up to his own words (not the law) - in order to vote as an ordinary lawmaker. He first said this at the beginning of this year - so why all the outrage now?
Hong Kong's Basic Law does not ban the president from casting a ballot, so he could very well vote while presiding over Legco. It is outrageous to call a man of his word 'dishonest'. Tsang is accountable to his voters and considers it important to uphold a promise made to fellow legislators. Which way he votes is not the issue, and whether one likes his choice is irrelevant. He was only 'speaking hypothetically', he said. It would do his critics a lot of good to remember that his swing vote probably won't be needed, and - most important - democratically speaking, there is no right or wrong vote. There is, however, such a thing as the right principle: integrity means taking the high road, not simply doing as the pan-democrats please.