Pan-democrats need strong leader like the late Szeto Wah, says Beijing loyalist

A moderate Beijing loyalist has lamented the lack of strong leaders, willing to make tough decisions, within the pan-democratic camp since the death of democracy stalwart Szeto Wah.

Tai Hay-lap, a core member of Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing's so-called reform banquet initiative, said the late Szeto would have accepted any "one man, one vote" proposal for political reform.

He said the stalled electoral reform process made him miss "Uncle Wah", who died in January 2011, just months after his Democratic Party voted for the government's reform proposal after securing the new district council functional seats elected by citywide ballot. "If Szeto Wah were still alive he would have secured 'one man, one vote' first, regardless of the rest," Tai said.

The two political camps are deadlocked over how to nominate candidates for chief executive in 2017, when the city chooses its leader by universal suffrage for the first time. The pan-democrats want voters to have the right to put forward candidates, while officials and Beijing loyalists insist this is unconstitutional.

Tai, Tsang and Policy Research Institute chief executive Andrew Fung Ho-keung have been arranging banquets and meetings with pan-democrats in an attempt to draw both sides to the negotiating table.

"There was no 'taking a wrong step' for Uncle Wah … He always told me a story, adapted from The Guns of Navarone," Tai recalled, referring to the 1961 film. "It was about how six men destroyed a seemingly impregnable fortress by bombing a small hole."