Audrey Eu: Leung Chun-ying should consider quitting
Problems of Leung's cabinet heart-wrenching, says Civic Party chairwoman; the party will continue proposing ideas to improve city
The Civic Party will offer solutions to the government's problems but controversy-embroiled Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying must help himself first, party chairwoman Audrey Eu Yuet-mee says.
Eu also said she wanted to double her party's membership to at least 800 in two years and raise funds for the party so that district work, policy research and other pro-democracy movements can be better carried out.
The party founder and newly elected chairwoman said it had been "heart-wrenching" to see Leung's cabinet creating problems one after another for themselves.
While Leung should consider stepping down, she said, the Civic Party would continue to seek solutions for the city's troubles, including suggestions on the policy address and budget.
"We don't just oppose, we want to have alternative solutions and better options," Eu said. "There have been suggestions from the Civic Party, which I think if the government is willing to adopt, would help [Hong Kong]. But very often the government is stuck with a face problem … and it just seems always to be at loggerheads with the pan-democrats."
Eu, 59, who was the Civic Party's founding leader from 2006 to 2010, and a lawmaker for 12 years before losing her seat in the election three months ago, was returned uncontested as chairwoman on Saturday.
Citing an example of her party's helpful suggestions, Eu said advice by party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit had played a part in Leung's decision in April to impose a ban on mainland women giving birth in Hong Kong.
She also vowed to continue seeking dialogue with the central government, although a recent debate about "pro-independence" sentiment in Hong Kong seemed to put her party, along with other pan-democratic groups, at the centre of attacks by Beijing and pro-Beijing figures.
This included a remark by a former mainland that "the rise of a pro-independence force is spreading like a virus".
"The problem is not with the Civic Party," Eu countered. "We do stand firm on 'one country, two systems' and it doesn't mean 'one country' to the exclusion of 'two systems', nor have we ever said 'two systems' means that we do not belong to China.
"We do want the Basic Law to be upheld, we don't want any interference with Hong Kong's internal affairs, [and] we are very much on guard when it comes to interference with Kong's internal affairs."
Previous setbacks in district council elections had left Civic Party with only six district councillors, while soaring rents made it difficult to start more district offices citywide, Eu added.
