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The way forward

Margaret Ng

IT can safely be said that never in the history of Hong Kong has an Urban or Regional Council election attracted so much public interest - and never was one more deserving of interest. The results are both bracing and revealing, and certainly repay close study.

If the recent election is a taste of things to come, then the strongest and clearest message is that the real battle is between the Democratic Party and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB). However hard anyone may try to blur the sharp divide or create middle ground, this polarisation is going to stick.

It is, one may almost say, the nature of modern politics to be two-party. Everything in the middle actually leans either to the one or the other, and those who insist on being neither, like the Liberal Party, end up as a nonentity.

The body count at the end of the day gives the victory to the Democratic Party. Of the 59 seats in the two Councils, it won 23 - nearly three times as many as the runners-up. Of the total turnout of some 560,000 voters, more than 200,000 votes went to the Democratic Party. This is certainly no mean achievement, particularly against the known support behind the scenes given to their opponents by such powerful organisations as Xinhua.

Albert Ho, the Democrat who finally won a seat in Tuen Mun, told reporters the Democratic Party was up against the 'entire machinery of the Communist Party and the PRC government' in Hong Kong - no mean opponent to take on indeed.

The figures themselves speak volumes about the fierceness of the battle. The Democratic Party and the DAB clashed in 11 districts. The DAB defeated the Democratic Party in only three. However, the vote count shows that the total number of votes gained by the combatants in the 11 districts were extremely close: 67,775 against 61,254 - a difference of barely five per cent.

The performance of the DAB suggests that they chose a cautious approach. Only a total of 17 candidates were fielded, against the Democratic Party's 36. Although only eight seats were won, in every case except one, they were won by a sizeable majority.

By comparison, the Democratic Party's performance was much more uneven, in some cases winning by a comfortable majority, in others winning or losing very narrowly.

What this seems to suggest is that, having no compunction to attempt to win enough seats in either Council to secure command, the DAB had the luxury of concentrating their forces on candidates they were reasonably confident of. They gave each candidate everything they had: all were at least a District Affairs Adviser, and all were given massive manpower for canvassing and for ensuring that their supporters turned out.

Looked at another way, one can also see that the DAB's strength lies in their very concrete groundwork among voters, and the machinery at their disposal to mobilise their forces. Their weakness lies in that they have difficulty coming up with candidates who are sufficiently attractive and credible in the eyes of the public. The fact that in a poll published in the Sunday Morning Post only 12 per cent of the respondents said they would vote for Tsang Yok-Sing, the Chairman of the DAB, is perhaps indicative of this.

On the other hand, the difficulties the Democratic Party must have experienced are almost palpable. In contrast to the DAB, they did not have the option of concentration. They had to strive for overall victory, or as widespread a victory as possible in preparation for the coming Legco elections - hence the 36 candidates. One could see that to do so they had to stretch their strength to the limit.

MOST candidates in the election held some political office. They were already District Board members, Urban or Regional Councillors or Hong Kong or District Affairs Advisers. The Democratic Party fielded the greatest number of candidates without any previous political office. Only nine of the 59 elected were without any political office; of these the Democratic Party accounted for five.

The picture is one of an almost desperate fight. And the victory must have come as a relief and have exceeded their own expectations. A hard-won battle, one would say, and one that does not permit the victors to rest on their laurels, because while they did their utmost, their opponents clearly have forces in reserve.

Those who have done the historical comparisons came up with the conclusion that, in terms of percentage of votes gained and seats won, the Democratic Party has done about the same in this election as the previous ones, including 1991.

In other words, as the Queen of Hearts said to Alice, it takes all the running you can do in order to stay in the same place, and if you want to get anywhere else you will have to run at least twice as fast. Will the Democratic Party be able to do that in the all-important coming Legco elections? Perhaps one should start by asking what accounts for their success so far. What did they have to put in the balance to counter the heavy guns of the pro-China arsenal? The only answer is their image - what they stand for. And what they stand for is the indigenous, anti-communist Hong Kong Chinese. The Hong Kong Chinese are intensely Chinese but equally partial to Hong Kong, and jealous of such autonomy as Hong Kong is wont to enjoy. They are, by temperament and - through the colonial environment which they have grown up resisting - fundamentally anti-establishment.

They may not be very enthusiastic about democracy, but they are unhesitatingly scathing about anyone who may be suspected of being a henchman of the establishment, British, Chinese or Hong Kong.

As for what is Chinese and what is foreign, they will go for the Chinese. But regarding the pro-establishment and the anti-establishment, it is anti-establishment every time. The mistrust of power, absolute or otherwise, is deep in the bones of the Hong Kong people, and they want their representatives in government to feel the same.

And this, perhaps more than anything else, accounts for Szeto Wah's victory. The very support that Elsie Tu is believed to have been assured from the pro-China sector turned her traditional strength against her.

In a way, this is also the threat that the Democratic Party has been labouring under since Chris Patten became Governor. His very support for democracy was a poisoned chalice for the Democrats, as his political flair cast theirs into the shadows.

If the past few years have been tough for the Democrats, the rewards in the recent election are all the more sweet, and point clearly to the way forward. To continue to win they must guard their image as a uniquely Hong Kong party jealously, to strive to be emphatically Chinese without the smallest suspicion of being pro-China, and to continue bravely to carry their burden as the flagship of Hong Kong's democratic movement, to unite such forces as they can, to form alliances where appropriate, and above all meet their opponents boldly whatever the odds, without fear or arrogance.

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