Opinion | Pro-establishment camp infighting takes focus away from Hong Kong’s pressing problems

Name: Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing camp reeling after crushing defeat in district council elections
Uploaded: 2021-02-14T22:45:20.000Z
Duration: 5 min 45 s
Description: Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing camp reeling after crushing defeat in district council elections

The debate on selection of the chief executive has turned vicious, with several of the camp’s ‘deep blue’ faction training their guns on former Legco president Jasper Tsang

Meanwhile, pan-democrats are bracing themselves for more disqualifications as the government prepares to introduce the oath of allegiance for district councillors

Reading Time:3 minutes

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Former Legco president Jasper Tsang attends an interview on November 16 last year. Tsang’s dismissal of the idea that the chief executive could be selected via consultation has sparked anger from the more conservative members of the loyalist camp. Photo: Dickson Lee

Alice Wu

Published: 6:45am, 15 Feb 2021Updated: 8:43am, 15 Feb 2021

Don’t think for one minute that there is little to see in Hong Kong politics now that we are without a sizeable opposition in the legislature. The sparring has just spilled over, to outside the chamber.

The fate of Hong Kong district councillors is pretty much sealed now that officials have confirmed they will soon be required to take oaths of allegiance. According to sources, this means they face disqualification if found to be insufficiently patriotic or, worse yet, considered a threat to national security.

The government is expected to try and get the legislature to pass these arrangements after the Lunar New Year.

We had expected this to happen – district councillors are public office holders and there’s no reason they would be spared the need to declare their allegiance and prove their loyalty. Will we now see another wave of disqualifications and mass resignations, this time in the district councils?

Perhaps this is why former chief executive Leung Chun-ying has been floating the idea that, under the Basic Law, the chief executive could legally be selected by Beijing via consultations, bypassing an election.

05:45

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing camp reeling after crushing defeat in district council elections

Leung had the foresight to anticipate an electoral conundrum and was merely thinking ahead and aloud. Since district councillors take up 117 seats in the 1,200-member Election Committee that selects the chief executive, their mass resignation and/or disqualification could greatly impact the election of the highest seat in the city.