My Take | How the politicians have failed our young people

In times like this, you almost wish the pan-democrats could offer someone with demagogic gifts to take charge of the "umbrella" movement and lead it forward.

At the same time, our political leaders such as Leung Chun-ying and Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor might have helped defuse rising tensions if they had agreed to meet and talk with student protesters early on. What we are witnessing is a profound failure of leaders on both sides of the divide who appear paralysed and clueless.

The police and protesters are left to drag out the street occupation that has polarised the public and become the worst political crisis since the handover. Is it any wonder that they have lost patience and started fighting each other like last night? Excessive police force and hardened protester resistance are almost inevitable.

The protests may be led by the young, but their resolution requires negotiations between experienced leaders. The new session of the legislature has opened and the pan-dems were back to their own posturing and shouting in the Legco chamber yesterday while establishment lawmakers made sound bites as if the city hasn't just lived through a sea change in populist politics.

The pan-dem elders are only too happy to see Leung and Lam squirm while offering no leadership to capitalise on the street occupation that could lead to some give-and-take on political reform. After sporadic appearances, pan-democratic old guards have all but disappeared from the streets. The so-called three gentlemen of Occupy Central are nowhere to be seen. No doubt the rigour of sleeping rough on hard pavements is too much for our high-paid professors and august barristers who prefer issuing media statements and calling press conferences than leading the young and negotiating with officials.

In the absence of leadership, the Occupy movement becomes increasingly fragmented. You have not only the Federation of Students, Scholarism and People Power, but fringe groups such as Civic Passion and the Proletariat Political Institute claiming leadership over various Occupy sites. We have plenty of youthful anger on the streets yet no resolution in sight. This is a dangerous moment.