The pan-democratic camp's biggest challenge this year will be settling internal disputes and working together, its legislators said. Ronny Tong Ka-wah, of the Civic Party, said that for the past six months, democratic legislators had been having discussions about working together more closely and setting aside differences, but without much success. 'I am quite disappointed by that, personally,' he said, adding that it was important to reach a consensus on a viable model of constitutional development and on the district council elections. 'The Commission on Strategic Development will come out with a model on constitutional development in February, and we shouldn't be reacting to that because then we will just be seen as the opposition. We should be taking the initiative to come up with a viable model before that,' Mr Tong said. He said there were differences on issues such as how the nominating committee for the chief executive election should be reformed. 'Also, there are some questions of 'face', such as who should propose the model and so on,' he said. Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho Chun-yan agreed that the democratic camp should avoid unnecessary disputes in the coming year, but said it was not necessary to forge a consensus. 'Beijing and the Hong Kong government will not give us what we have agreed on anyway. It's meaningless to dwell on the details,' Mr Ho said, adding that the party was open to all proposals based on the principle of equal suffrage. But Mr Ho and Mr Tong agreed the democratic camp needed to avoid clashes in the district council elections at the end of the year. Mr Tong said there were difficulties in trying to co-ordinate efforts between different pan-democratic parties. 'The League of Social Democrats, for example, are not really willing to talk,' he said. 'There are some districts where we have voters but no candidates, and then some districts where we're all trying to field candidates.' Mr Ho said: 'We really have to compromise on that. Our aim is to win as many seats as possible.' But Civic Party leader Audrey Eu Yuet-mee said the pan-democrats faced bigger difficulties from outside their camp than from within. 'I would imagine our greater challenge lies in our common cause rather than in our differences.'
