The Democratic Party is aiming to win about 10 more seats in next year's district council polls, its chairman said yesterday. Chairman Lee Wing-tat said district councillors who had won narrowly in the last election in 2003 might lose next time, but the party was ready to field other candidates. 'We know those who won by only a few hundred votes benefited from the impact of the July 1 protest that year,' Mr Lee said. 'We are prepared that they might lose this time. We are now identifying other potential candidates to run.' While the party hopes to win 5 to 10 per cent more seats, Mr Lee admitted it would not necessarily be an easy battle as the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong had outperformed them on a district level. 'They did a great job in doing their district work,' he said. 'They are very organised.' The Democratic Party, which has about 80 district councillors, was seen as the big winner in the last district council election, taking about 80 per cent of the seats it contested. The DAB suffered a huge setback, managing to win only 60 out of the 400 elected seats. The election in 2003 also saw DAB vice-chairman Ip Kwok-him lose his Central and Western District Council seat to Cyd Ho Sau-lan of Civic Act-up, which was established after the July 1 protest march against the proposed national security legislation. Ms Ho admitted the civic group benefited from the mass demonstration to win three out of five candidates it put up. 'We did not oppose Article 23 for the sake of the election,' she said. 'We did not aim to discredit the government and then have a victory in the district council and Legislative Council elections.' Ms Ho said it was too early and meaningless to estimate the number of seats the group would win and that they should now concentrate on doing their own work.
