Pro-Beijing camp faces uphill battle in Legco polls, says Rita Fan
City’s sole member of NPC standing committee fears pan-democrats will attract first-time voters
A pro-Beijing heavyweight has drawn a gloomy picture for politicians in the camp, saying they face an uphill battle in the forthcoming Legislative Council polls, with seat losses “highly likely”.
Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai – the only Hong Kong member in the National People’s Congress standing committee and a former Legco president – gave three reasons for her bleak forecast.
First, the last Legco victory for the pro-establishment camp relied on miscalculations in the opposition pan-democratic camp, which may not be repeated in September’s polls.
Second, the surge in first-time voters seems to play to the advantage of pan-democrats, as the result of the New Territories East constituency by-election showed they enjoyed higher popularity among this group.
Third, the rise of new political figures on the anti-establishment side has successfully yielded many of the votes. These include Edward Leung Tin-kei of localist group Hong Kong Indigenous who fared well in the by-election.
However, the pro-establishment camp looks set to enjoy at least a simple majority as half of the 70 seats go to functional constituencies, many of which are voted mainly by Beijing-loyalist “small circles”.
The Legco election results will be seen as a strong indicator on whether Beijing would regard Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying as deserving of a new five-year term next year.
Fan, however, said she had “no idea” whether this would be the case.
But she lamented the “radicalisation” of lawmakers. “While Taiwan’s parliamentarians have changed from radical behaviour to moderate, ours took the reverse course,” she said
Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, agreed with Fan’s assessment.
“In the past, there was luck involved that the DAB could win 13 seats in the legislature”, Lee said. “Some of our allies will also field candidates [in the Legco elections] … so coordination is becoming more difficult”.
In response to Fan’s comment that first-time voters would mostly back the pan-democrats, Lee said there will also be those who are dissatisfied with conflicts within the legislature.
Asked how the DAB would adapt to the challenges, she said: “We will try to put our ideas across more clearly on how to resolve the impasse [in the legislature].”
But Lee’s party colleague Tam Yiu-chung said: “I don’t know why [Fan] made such analysis. We always expect to face difficulties, so we’ll do our best.”
