When Hong Kong’s pan-democrat lawmakers resort to pranks, the joke is on Hong Kong

Legislators who pull stunts during debates are part of the political problem. The ineffective and hypocritical opposition must share the blame for the city’s dysfunctional politics

Alice Wu

Published: 6:15am, 8 Jun 2020

Why you can trust SCMP

Another week, another round of stink bombs in the Legislative Council. There seems to be nothing but repeats at Tamar, but in case you were wondering, here is a quick recap of the debate on the national anthem bill: in a bid to stall the second reading of the bill on May 28, lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung hurled what he said was a container of rotten plants towards the podium of the Legco president, and stank out the chamber.

At the final debate one week later, not only did Hui pull the same stupefying stunt again, he also apparently inspired two other pan-democrats, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick and Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, to disrupt the proceedings with a foul-smelling concoction of their own. But the bill outlawing disrespect of the national anthem was put to vote anyway.

Our legislators are not to be mistaken for Shakespearean fools. Their clowning provided no comic relief, nor did they speak truth to power. They simply elected to be unadulterated fools and then tried to pass that nonsense off as protest. Let the stench of their monkey-see-monkey-do behaviour hang over them.

They are indulging in stupid pranks even though they are way past the age for such childishness. Hui had already set himself apart in 2018 when he snatched a female civil servant’s phone, accessed its contents in the men’s room and forwarded files to his own email account. He was subsequently convicted of three charges of common assault, obtaining access to a computer with dishonest intent and obstructing a public officer.

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Hong Kong lawmaker throws container of rotten plants in protest of controversial national anthem law

And since then, there has been a race to the bottom. While we shouldn’t expect much from Hui, who has proven himself politically eccentric and seems unable to outgrow his playground-bully persona, Chu and Chan are more than capable of putting together convincing arguments and contributing to debates in the legislature – and seeing them go down that same route gives reason for pause.

We have surely arrived at that point where we need to seriously consider how sick and tired we are of these pranks, and to come to the realisation that these pranksters are very much part of the political problem in Hong Kong. They are taking us, the people, for fools.

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Only one opposition lawmaker voted against the national anthem bill. For some, causing a literal stink was a way to get themselves expelled and be excused from voting. Others charged the podium so they would not be in their seats to cast their votes.

What self-serving political theatrics! And these were the same people who were outraged by the latest musings of Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

Back in 2018, Tam raised the possibility that those chanting slogans calling for an end to “one-party dictatorship” on the mainland could be disqualified from running in elections. In an article published in Bauhinia Magazine just days before the final vote on the national anthem bill last week, Tam suggested that those who opposed the new national security legislation for Hong Kong would be failing to uphold the Basic Law and should therefore be barred from elections.

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The pan-democrats slammed Tam for making threats. They vowed they would not back down from their opposition to national security legislation. But as the world saw last week, with the exception of Cheng Chung-tai, they backed down over the national anthem bill.

They spent years provoking Beijing and playing on fear and rage for political gain; they spent much of the legislative year stalling the election of the chairperson of the House Committee with the intent of blocking the national anthem bill; and yet when it came to the crunch, they excused themselves from the vote.

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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are guilty of incompetence, of course. But the ineffective, incapable and hypocritical opposition shares the blame for this city’s dysfunctional politics.

A record 401,900 new voters will be eligible to vote in the upcoming Legco elections. Returning the same people, same tactics and same political dynamics would put us in an even more precarious position. Maybe September is the time to send the same old faces packing.

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA

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