I TOOK great pride in voting at the District Board election. For me, it was more than just a civic duty. It was all the more poignant for me when I have been disfranchised in my own country due to my political belief.
In 1990, Burma had a general election in which the party led by the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won 80 per cent of the seats. But the Burmese military dictators refused to honour the results and instead bundled the leaders into jails on trumped up charges. Aung San Suu Kyi is now serving her sixth year of imprisonment. Meanwhile the generals are getting even more entrenched, thanks to the dollars pouring in, courtesy of the mercantalist traders. How fortunate the people of Hong Kong are when we can leave the polling booths secure in the knowledge that the duly-elected people will take their rightful place. This is the essence of democracy where the people elect and the results are honoured.
My son asked me if my candidate will win. I explained that all of us are winners in an election, the candidates as well as the voters, as long as there is a free democratic process. I am not too worried about the rumblings from across the border about different trains. It does not matter whether the train is through or not, as long as it carries the wishes of the people of Hong Kong. For that, we will have to vote in even greater numbers come 1995 at the Legislative Council elections.
