It may seem riven with dissent but an assessment of lawmakers' performance shows the pan-democrats are not as divided as people imagine.
At the same time, the 'pro-establishment' camp - comprising pro-Beijing and pro-business groups - is not as unified as people think, SynergyNet research director Dr Ray Yep Kin-man said.
In its fifth annual review of Legco, policy think tank SynergyNet found that the contradiction rate - the rate at which legislators did not vote with their own bloc - in the pro-establishment camp over the last year was 22.7 per cent, while that of the pan-democratic camp was 14.5 per cent.
Yep said the pro-establishment parties served different interests and had different positions on the political spectrum, and disagreements emerged over livelihood agendas. 'On political issues, the pro-establishment camp has a clear common goal, as exemplified by the electoral reform package,' he said. 'But such issues make up a small part of the Legco agenda. On the remaining livelihood matters, the parties have to respond to the different classes of voters they represent.'
For example, when the council voted on the 20-plus amendments to the minimum wage bill, the federation supported seven initiated by pan-democratic lawmakers while the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong voted against it.
The DAB also vetoed two amendments raised by the federation.
