Fighting for their cause

For 48 hours, between a simmering Thursday and Saturday in July, ousted legislator Fred Li Wah-ming struggled with extreme hunger.

His body sweating, his eyebrows in a deep frown, Mr Li tried to ignore the smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken mingling with music from an ice-cream van. His hunger strike of two days had just begun, the first of what will be many journeys on the battered campaign trail before ballots are cast again in new Legislative Council elections some time in May next year.

The heat baking the street like an oven, Mr Li was speaking through a loud-hailer, trying to sound committed as he urged passers-by to support his signature campaign against public housing rent increases. It would be nice, too, if the men and women who lived and shopped in Diamond Hill would remember him and vote for him next year.

Mr Li does not usually mingle with the Diamond Hill crowds. During the last election, when the geographical constituencies were considerably smaller than those planned for the 1998 election, Mr Li manoeuvred in Kowloon Southeast covering such areas as Kwun Tong and Lam Tin.

New arrangements merging the previous 20 geographical constituencies into five make the campaign battle more strenuous.

During the last election, Mr Li worked furiously to visit as many voters at home as possible. You do not need to be spellbinding to win in an election. If you cannot charm the masses you can charm the individuals, enough of whom forms a mass and wins you a Legco seat.

'I visited all my 110,000 voters last time at their homes,' Mr Li said. He was campaigning in the hottest months of the year. But visiting them there is the most direct and effective way of getting them to know and vote for you.