Public Eye | Pan-democrats hit the wrong mark on 'true democracy'

Do Iran and North Korea have true democracy? It depends on how you define true democracy. Both countries allow the people to vote for their leaders. In Iran, all candidates must be approved by a 12-member Guardian Council, which is not elected by the people. In North Korea, all seats in the legislature are won by the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. Turnout is 100 per cent. Leader Kim Jong-un is always re-elected by every voter in his constituency. There are no other candidates. Both countries define their systems as democratic. So, technically speaking, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was not wrong when he told the Legislative Council last week that true democracy is what a country's system defines it as.

What was wrong was the way Democratic Party member Helena Wong Pik-wan framed the question. Instead of asking if Iran and North Korea had true democracy she should have asked if they had true democracy as defined in the West. That would have put Leung in a minefield. Public Eye doesn't know how he would have answered but we would have sensibly answered in the negative. Ask the late Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew and he would have likely scoffed in disdain. He was not one for accepting Western democracy standards as the gold standard. What mattered to him was what worked best for the country. Did Lee's authoritarian rule with a sprinkling of democracy work best for the country? The answer lies in the 100,000 Singaporeans who turned out in pouring rain for his funeral. Are the democracies of India, the Philippines and Thailand working best for those countries? Compare them to Singapore for your answer. Wong's other folly was comparing Hong Kong to North Korea and Iran. If there was the slightest comparison, even with Singapore, she and other people in the umbrella movement would be in jail by now.

Panic is in the air. Beijing's political reform framework for Hong Kong is belly-up. Well, almost. The government is still four votes short of the two-thirds majority required for Legco approval. Officials are said to be desperately trying to find four democracy camp legislators willing to switch sides. Real desperation, or just going through the motions? How keen is Beijing really for the framework to pass? Think back to who grudgingly approved one person, one vote for the 2017 chief executive election. It was then-president Hu Jintao at the pleading of then-chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen. But current President Xi Jinping brooks no insubordination from Hong Kong. Beijing's firm refusal to kowtow during the Occupy protests is testament to that. The way Public Eye hears it, Beijing couldn't care less if pan-democrats vote down the reforms. It may even prefer it. The alternative thinking is that Beijing wants the framework to pass because it would be humiliating for Hong Kong's legislature to reject reforms approved by the Standing Committee of the national legislature. Which is true? Ask yourself what Beijing would be more comfortable with: a big step that could lead to future genuine democracy, or no step at all?