Not only do pan-democrats risk losing their veto power in the legislature, they fear they may lose representation on key Legco committees when five lawmakers from the Civic Party and the League of Social Democrats resign to trigger by-elections that they call a de facto referendum on the pace of democratisation. Alan Leong Kah-kit of the Civic Party and Wong Yuk-man of the league - who will both resign next week - are members of the public accounts committee, which monitors the value for money of government operations. Democrat Andrew Cheng Kar-foo will be the sole pan-democrat left on the committee, whose composition reflects the balance of power of major parties in the legislature. Tanya Chan of the Civic Party, who will also quit Legco, is deputy chairman of the home affairs panel. Meeting yesterday, pan-democrats voiced concern government allies may grab the two seats on the public accounts committee and the panel deputy chairmanship. 'It has long been a tradition for pan-democrats and government allies to negotiate an agreement on who takes which position,' said independent democrat Cyd Ho Sau-lan, who chaired the meeting. 'But now we fear they will not follow the rules.' Ip Kwok-him of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, who is the lead negotiator for government allies, said the old rules might not apply. 'While it is good to preserve the balance, it seems not everybody is interested in following rules these days,' he said. While the pan-democrats worry about the committee and panel seats, lawmakers expect the hottest race will be for Wong Yuk-man's seat as one of three Legco representatives on the council of Chinese University. A spat between the Civic Party and the league on who should take the post after the 2008 election almost led to government allies filling all three seats.