Hong Kong’s pan-democrat lawmakers not as obstructive as you might think
Despite their customary opposition to government policies, mainstream pan-democrats pass more than half of bills put before them in Legco
Mainstream pan-democrat lawmakers backed more than half of government bills passed in the four-year legislative term that ended on Friday, contrary to their widely perceived image as political obstructionists in Hong Kong.
On the other end of the political spectrum, the South China Morning Post found, government-friendly legislators voted almost 100 per cent “yes” to the 27 bills passed with a division or standing vote count called.
Their track record exhibited a generosity that contradicted their recent display of reluctance on whether to back Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying for a second term next year.
The bills studied by the Post were only those that made it to the third-reading vote, meaning that highly controversial legislative attempts such as copyright or medical reform that were aborted before the final stage were excluded.
The Legco term that ended last week coincided with that of the Leung administration, which took over three months before the legislature reconvened.
The statistics showed that politicians who are now calling for Leung’s ousting actually supported his policies when it came to voting on government bills.
The Democratic Party was the most supportive, passing close to 70 per cent of the bills.
The Civic Party voted 64 per cent in favour, compared with the Labour Party’s 62 per cent.
“Even without their votes the government could pass the bills due to the legislative majority of pro-establishment lawmakers. So why did they support it and trust it?” Leung said.
But the Democratic Party’s James To Kun-sun, who will seek re-election in September, said the 70 per cent of bills they had backed – on issues ranging from five-day weeks for the judiciary to air pollution and finances – were not controversial.
The four radical pro-democracy lawmakers, on the other hand, voted “no” more than “yes” in the four-year term.
Like the moderate pan-democrats, the pro-establishment Liberal Party – which is currently calling for “anyone but CY” Leung as the next chief executive – was also shown to be highly supportive of the government’s bills despite its dislike of the city’s leader.
We support those bills no matter who the chief executive is
The party supported 83 per cent of the bills.
“We support those bills no matter who the chief executive is,” party chairman Felix Chung Kwok-pan said, insisting the Liberals were “not an opposition party”.
Others were not that openly anti-Leung. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong and the Federation of Trade Unions – whose candidates have already been grilled on their stance on next year’s chief executive election – voted 100 per cent in favour of the government on the 27 bills in the past four years.
Despite the zero probability of turning against Leung’s ministers, they were unprepared to pledge support for him, saying only they would wait and see which candidates threw their hats in the ring.
Chinese University political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung said it was an embarrassing situation for pro-establishment lawmakers. “They couldn’t be as openly supportive of a chief executive as they were during Donald Tsang Yam-kuen’s era, due to Leung’s unpopularity.”
Additional reporting by Fred Lai
