Pan-democrats must show how political deadlock can be broken, says dissident in camp
Pan-democrats must explain how Hong Kong can achieve universal suffrage if they reject the government’s political reform package, a dissident within the pro-democracy camp said.
Pan-democrats must explain how Hong Kong can achieve universal suffrage if they reject the government’s political reform package, a dissident within the pro-democracy camp said today.
Nelson Wong Sing-chi, a veteran member of the Democratic Party, made the remarks after the party yesterday accepted his resignation from its decision-making central committee for his earlier calls for pan-democrats to accept the government’s reform proposal. Wong remains a party member, however.
Wong, a former legislator, said pan-democrats have to show they have plans to break the deadlock after voting down the government’s plan for the next chief executive election in 2017.
Beijing has said that if Hong Kong rejects the reform package this time, the 2017 poll to select the chief executive will remain unchanged from the 2012 poll, when the city’s leader was selected by a 1,200-strong committee.
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Wong said rejecting the current proposal would leave no room for Hong Kong to democratise the chief executive election, and he questioned how pan-democrats could achieve their goal.
“All the pan-democrats need to come out and explain how they can lead Hong Kong to move forward, and to achieve genuine universal suffrage,” he told DBC radio.
Wong was the second Democrat after former lawmaker Tik Chi-yuen to call on their counterparts in Legco to accept the limited democracy based on Beijing’s framework, which stipulates that only two to three hopefuls who win majority support from a 1,200-strong nominating committee can go forward to a public vote.
He said he would remain a member of the Democratic Party even if the government’s reform proposal is eventually passed in the Legislative Council. He said he wanted to focus on district affairs.
Tik, who also spoke on today’s radio programme, said the current reform package was a “rotten orange”. But rejecting it would result in keeping an “even more rotten orange”.
Tik also said he would remain a member of the Democratic Party because he still shared the same political values.
