Pan-democrats agonise over Shanghai invitation to discuss political reform
To go or not to go to Shanghai for talks with central government officials on political reform? That is the vexed question facing pan-democratic lawmakers.
To go or not to go to Shanghai for talks with central government officials on political reform?
That is the vexed question facing pan-democratic lawmakers who are torn about what they should do as debate rages on the best way forward to achieve universal suffrage for the 2017 chief executive election.
At least seven of them, including four from the Labour Party and Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing, have vowed to boycott the trip, while Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah, who has called for dialogue with Beijing, wants the pan-democrats to seize the opportunity to close the rift with Beijing by joining the tour.
The pan-democrats will meet again tomorrow to decide on the invitation, after failing to reach a consensus on Friday.
The chairman of the National People's Congress, Zhang Dejiang, who heads the Communist Party's leading group on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, on March 6 set the parameters for the city's political reform by saying Hong Kong should not copy Western election models in implementing universal suffrage.
The state leader said Hong Kong's political reform must follow the track laid down in the Basic Law, adding that Western election models might become a "democracy trap" that causes catastrophic results.