Just Saying | Are Hong Kong’s pan-democrats finished? ‘Staplegate’ is a sign of the times
Yonden Lhatoo bemoans the downfall of the city’s opposition camp, spotlighting its highly questionable handling of Howard Lam’s kidnap and torture claims
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy,” a wise man once wrote.
Is that the story of Hong Kong’s pan-democrats?
There used to be a time when they were seen as a meaningful opposition force to counter some of the shoeshiners, sycophants and rubber stampers in the pro-establishment camp that has always dominated the city’s legislature. Not any more.
Not only are they becoming more irrelevant and ineffectual by the day, they seem to be plumbing new depths of political farce and buffoonery. Just look at the circus that has been dubbed “Staplegate”.
[The Lam case] has left the pan-democrats with egg on their faces and their credibility in tatters
Lam claimed he was snatched by Putonghua-speaking men from a busy street in broad daylight, bundled into a van and taken to an unknown location where they punched staples into his legs before dumping him on a beach last week.