Popularity and a plan – that’s what it’ll take to win DAB’s support in Hong Kong chief executive poll next year
Starry Lee, chairwoman of city’s largest pro-Beijing party, says candidate will have to figure out how to break current political deadlock
Popularity and a plan to break the political deadlock in Hong Kong will be the key factors to winning the city’s largest pro-Beijing party’s blessing to run in the chief executive poll next year.
Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, also said she would give priority to a party colleague if anyone was “willing and accepted by the society” to stand for election in 2017.
But Lee dropped a strong hint that she would not run, as she believed Hongkongers were “not keen on supporting” a candidate with a political party background. She also declined to say whom she would support if Leung were to be challenged by New People’s Party chairwoman Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who is widely tipped to run.
READ MORE: Beijing may consider alternative candidates in 2017 Hong Kong chief executive poll, says NPC heavyweight Rita Fan
Lee was speaking a day after National People’s Congress standing committee member Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai said Beijing would consider alternative candidates in the race for Hong Kong’s top job next year if Leung remained unpopular.
The remarks from Fan, who backed Leung’s rival Henry Tang Ying-yen in the 2012 election, underlined the division among Beijing loyalists on whether Leung should seek re-election.
NPC deputy Maria Tam Wai-chu suggested that a chief executive should serve a 10-year tenure, but unionist lawmaker Chan Yuen-han, who backed Leung in 2012, called the chief executive “arrogant”.
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Speaking on Commercial Radio on Wednesday morning, Lee declined to say if she supported Leung’s re-election.
“If his challenger is [pan-democrat leader] Alan Leong, it’s hard for me not to support CY Leung,” she said, though she added that if the DAB were represented in the poll, her “priority” would go to her party colleague.
The people and I expect the chief executive and parties to think of ways to break and lead us out of the deadlock.
“Popularity will also be an important consideration,” Lee said.
She added: “Since many young people [have voiced] their discontent about the political deadlock in Hong Kong ... and many people are tired of the stalemate and are worried that Hong Kong cannot move forward, the people and I expect the chief executive and parties to think of ways to break and lead us out of the deadlock.”
“We will think of solutions and formulate a manifesto ... The more a candidate can agree with our manifesto, or the more we agree that a candidate can break the deadlock, the more support we will give that candidate,” she said.
Several DAB lawmakers have recently said that the party should consider fielding candidates in future chief executive elections, but Lee said that while she would not rule out the possibility, she had yet to see anyone in the party who was “capable, willing, and publicly accepted” to run next year.
READ MORE: HKU student magazine says Hong Kong should become independent from China after 2047
While acknowledging the discontent felt by young people in Hong Kong, Lee also described advocacy for the city’s independence as “tantamount to suicide”.
“You should think of what price we will pay if we advocate independence ... The more you advocate it, the less likely it will be for us to get a higher and wider space under the ‘one country, two systems’ principle,” Lee warned.
She was speaking a day after Leung dismissed the arguments for independence in an article in the latest issue of the University of Hong Kong student magazine Undergrad.
