Opponents of the HK$66.9 billion Hong Kong-Guangzhou express rail project succeeded in blocking for a second time a vote to approve funding for the line last night, triggering a deafening victory roar from thousands of demonstrators ringing the Legislative Council building.
League of Social Democrat lawmakers had promised drama and repeated tabling of motions to delay a vote, but in the end the meeting of Legco's Finance Committee was adjourned to next Friday because lawmakers used up the six hours allotted for debate on the project by asking a plethora of questions.
Lawmakers eager to approve funding for the 26 kilometre line criticised pan-democratic lawmakers for deliberately repeating questions as a delaying tactic.
Tam Yiu-chung, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, sought to fix a schedule for a fresh debate and vote and proposed next time the meeting continue indefinitely until a vote could be taken. But pan-democrats, who asked most of the questions, opposed him, saying he hoped to wait until they fell silent from exhaustion, then push the measure through.
In the last of the three sessions of yesterday's meeting, all but one of the 16 questions were put by pan-democrats - whose questions covered potential disruptions to traffic during the line's construction, compensation for affected property owners and the link's cost-effectiveness if its terminus was moved from West Kowloon to Kam Sheung Road in the New Territories, as a group of engineering professionals has proposed.
At one point, a war of words broke out between Paul Tse Wai-chun of the tourism sector - one of the beneficiaries of a new high-speed line - and the Civic Party's Ronny Tong Ka-wah. Tse accused the latter of masked his delaying tactics by asking the same question several times using different words.
Yesterday's meeting ended at 10.45pm, after more than six hours, without fixing a time to resume debate next Friday. Lawmakers could not agree how many hours should be scheduled for the debate.