Donations scandal opens can of worms for all parties, academic says
Academic says parties across the spectrum would probably prefer city doesn't reform a system that keeps political donations a secret
The millions of dollars Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has allegedly donated to pan-democrats may be just the tip of the iceberg of the financial backing local politicians get.
A political scientist expects parties across the political spectrum will be reluctant to close loopholes in the system that let them keep donations secret from the public, despite an explosive revelation last week that five pan-democratic lawmakers failed to declare contributions received from the media mogul.
Suffering the worst of the backlash is Labour Party leader Lee Cheuk-yan, who now rues his "bad decision" to keep in his personal bank account HK$500,000 Lai gave him last autumn. After files were leaked on July 22 alleging Lai's donations to pan-democratic parties and politicians, Lee moved the money to his party.
Lee and League of Social Democrats stalwart "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, who earlier admitted accepting HK$500,000 from Lai, offered fresh apologies to the public yesterday for their handling of the donations.
Lee said he feared the incident would hit the credibility of the democracy movement "at a critical stage", and if that happened, he would have let his allies down.
"I did not handle [the donation] well and have failed to put the public at ease," he told Commercial Radio. "I apologise over the doubts we have caused among the public because of the handling [of the donation] by the Labour Party and by me."