Veteran democrat should let young successors finish the job he started
I refer to the report ('Democrats must stick to principle, Martin Lee says', July 11).
It is sad to see the 'father of democracy' Martin Lee Chu-ming berating his own Democratic Party members. He is upset that these lawmakers voted for the political reform bill.
Mr Lee was one of the Basic Law drafters. He is familiar with the Basic Law. He is also familiar with the 2007 decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. It specified that the 2012 legislature must have 50 per cent geographical and 50 per cent functional constituency seats. He fully understands that with the constraints imposed by the decision, his party got the best possible bargain. Yet he is upset. It is hard to understand his reasons.
The slogan the pan-democrats, including the Democratic Party, took up in the 2008 Legislative Council election was, 'Universal suffrage for the legislature and the chief executive in 2012'. How many of their supporters know that this platform contravened the Standing Committee's 2007 decision? The only way this platform could have succeeded was to get the Basic Law changed. If we go the way Mr Lee and the Civic Party want to take, will we be living in a rule-of-law society? When the Basic Law can be changed that easily, we might as well live in a rule-by-man society, in which the central government can change the Basic Law unilaterally on a whim or when it gives in to certain groups' demands in Hong Kong.
The Basic Law states clearly that for the composition of the legislature to change after 2007, it needs a two-thirds yes vote in the legislature. In all the years running up to 2007, when Mr Lee was the leader of the Democratic Party, did he do any constructive work to try to get the two-thirds majority in the legislature to achieve his goal of universal suffrage for Hong Kong?
Is it not time for him to admit that his confrontational ways have failed? The way his party is now taking will finally get Hong Kong to the destination of universal suffrage. It is time for this old fighter for democracy to take a rest and let his young successors finish the job he started.
Alex Woo, Tsim Sha Tsui
