My Take | Stop this farce, let Au Nok-hin get on with the job
It’s truly bizarre that both the localist and pro-government camps are challenging the election of the pan-democrat on Hong Kong Island
Suddenly, people on opposing sides want to challenge pan-democrat Au Nok-hin for his by-election victory for the Hong Kong Island seat in the legislature.
That’s from both the localist and pro-government camps. Can politics get any more bizarre?
With help from former pro-Beijing lawmaker Wong Kwok-hing, a taxi union leader, Wong Tai-hoi, has applied for a judicial review challenging both Au and the government’s returning officer for allowing him to run in the by-election.
The filing rests on an incident in which Au was seen burning a copy of the Basic Law during a protest and which supposedly proved his unwillingness to uphold the city’s mini-constitution and pledge allegiance to Hong Kong to qualify as a legislator.
Au has responded by blasting the claim as “outrageous” on the ground that he was merely burning a printout of a cover page from the Basic Law. But isn’t every copy of the Basic Law a copy, in which case you can, arguably, never burn the “real” Basic Law? It’s the symbolism, Mr Au.