As the city debated the role of functional constituencies in future elections, its least active lawmakers showed this session that the easier it was to get the job, the less likely they were to represent their electors' interests by voting.
Four out of the six most reluctant voters in the Legislative Council in the past session were functional constituency members who were returned to Legco uncontested in the previous election, according to an analysis of voting records by the South China Morning Post.
In 2008, 12 functional constituencies returned 14 lawmakers to Legco without contest. Over the past two sessions, those four members - David Li Kwok-po, Chim Pui-chung, Timothy Fok Tsun-ting and Abraham Razack - have accrued some of the chamber's lowest voting records.
Fok and Razack also had the lowest attendance in the chamber, by far - Fok attended 61 per cent of meetings while Razack attended 89 per cent. Nearly everyone else had a 94 per cent attendance - or two absences - or above.
The fact that functional constituency members vote less is not a surprise - the Post reported similar results for last year's session. But this year's voting records revealed a startling trend among the directly elected League of Social Democrats. The chamber's most ardent opposition party nearly quintupled the number of missed votes - from 8 per cent last year to 39 per cent this year, a figure that surprised observers.
'Everyone on earth knows David Li and other functional constituency lawmakers are lazy,' Chinese University political scientist Ma Ngok said. 'But even a banana-throwing opposition should cast their votes.'