Albert Ho plans to quit ‘super seat’ and spark reform referendum

Democratic Party heavyweight Albert Ho Chun-yan plans to quit his hard-earned "super seat" in the legislature to trigger a de facto referendum on constitutional reform after the expected rejection of the government's electoral proposal this summer.

Dropping the bombshell yesterday, the veteran legislator caught even his pan-democratic allies by surprise.

Both friends and foes gave the idea a lukewarm response despite Ho expressing hope that the move would boost their fight for genuine universal suffrage.

Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah questioned whether it would make any difference, while the NeoDemocrats' Gary Fan Kwok-wai asked if Ho had in mind his party's prospects in the November district council elections, a suggestion that Ho emphatically denied.

Ho is one of just five "super seat" lawmakers, so called because they have a bigger mandate than their 65 colleagues, having won a 2012 Legislative Council ballot of 3.2 million electors who didn't have a vote in another functional constituency. He stepped down as the Democrats' chairman after the party polled poorly in that election.

The government's upcoming proposal on how to elect the chief executive in 2017 is all but certain to be vetoed in the legislature.

But if that happened, the city would suffer "inestimable losses", Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing warned yesterday.