Opinion | Carrie Lam is a godsend to the opposition – she’s the one thing they can agree on

Just last year, the pan-democrats suffered a big setback in legislative by-elections because they couldn’t work together with the localists. Thanks to the chief executive, the factions are now more united than ever

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In the current political crisis in Hong Kong, peaceful protesters have stood side by side with violent protesters – united against Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:30am, 19 Aug 2019Updated: 9:37am, 19 Aug 2019

No one seems to know how Hong Kong is going to get through the present crisis and, instead, a lot of us have been looking ahead to the future. And it’s not just observers like me.

Members of the pro-establishment camp are bracing themselves for huge losses in the upcoming district council elections. Post columnist Alex Lo has gone further, to predict a big win for the pan-democrats in next year’s Legislative Council election: well, at least a win big enough for them to take a historic role in shaping and fighting for political reform (instead of against it, as they have done before).

Nothing should be ruled out, of course. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her government have been a godsend to the pan-democrats. It’s hard to believe that it was only last year that the pan-democrats suffered a big setback, with two consecutive losses in the Kowloon West by-elections due to disunity and their failure to win the hearts and minds of the localists.

The localist problem had been the pan-democrats’ biggest headache ever since Edward Leung Tin-kei took 15 per cent of the vote in the 2016 New Territories East by-election. After Leung made his political mark, the pan-democrats were torn: to align themselves with radical and violent groups would be to risk losing their base, but rejecting the localists meant losing their influence.

The truth is that the pan-democrats’ uneasy relationship with the localists endangered their own political future. They had been in a “damned if they do and damned if they don’t” situation for years. The consensus, at the end of 2018, was that the pan-democrats could only have a future if they cut all links with the pro-independence and self-determination forces.

Who would have guessed Lam, of all people, could single-handedly solve the pan-democrats’ localist problems? With her deeply unpopular extradition bill, she has inadvertently brought together traditional pan-democrats and radical localists.

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