According to the liaison office, the delay has held up 14 bills and more than 80 subsidiary pieces of legislation affecting livelihood and economic issues that must first pass through the key committee.

In its statement on Thursday, Beijing’s local foreign affairs arm said the other agencies had “the right to supervise”.

“It is only natural and dutiful for the two central government bodies on Hong Kong (and Macau) affairs to state their position on the opposition’s attempt to hijack Legco and paralyse the government’s law-based governance, set things right, and uphold effective governance,” the office said.

“It has revealed their tactic of ‘objecting for the sake of objecting’ and the ‘burn with us’ mentality, and laid bare their destructive rather than constructive nature. Of course their behaviour deserves condemnation,” the office said, echoing language used in the HKMAO statement.

Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and Liaison Office slam opposition lawmakers

The statement also accused foreign politicians and media outlets of endorsing the acts of the pro-democracy camp and defaming the central government agencies.

“It is they who are blatantly meddling with Hong Kong affairs and undermining ‘one country, two systems’,” the office said.

The two Beijing agencies on Monday specifically singled out legal sector lawmaker Dennis Kwok, of the opposition Civic Party, for allegedly abusing his power by allowing the use of filibustering tactics to delay the naming of a chairman while he presides over the committee.

How long he will hold that role was put into question on Thursday, as Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the pro-government Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, sent a surprise letter to committee members in which she referred to herself as “chairman of the House Committee”.

In her letter, Lee invited members to submit their views no later than next Tuesday as to how they proposed the committee resolve the matter.

But Kwok said on Thursday evening that Lee, who served as committee chair last term, had no authority to decide on election procedures, adding there was “an obvious conflict of interest” as she plans to run for the seat herself.

As fresh government voices joined the fray on Thursday, the Civic Party expressed fears the attacks on Kwok might signal the start of a renewed attempt by Beijing to push through controversial national security legislation before a September election that could see pan-democrats who oppose it take control of Legco.

Editorial: Time for Legco to get back to business and put differences aside

Party veterans said a worst-case scenario could involve direct enactment of Article 23, a proposed national security law that provoked citywide protests when put forward in 2003, or even the suspension of Legco and convening of a provisional legislature.

“If the pro-democracy camp does achieve a majority [in the upcoming elections], then Article 23 legislation [the national security law] will not be enacted in the coming four years,” lawmaker Jeremy Tam Man-ho said.

“The only way for Beijing to do so then would be to nullify the election, or even declare they are taking back power from Legco.”

Johannes Chan Man-mun, a constitutional law professor at the University of Hong Kong, meanwhile, told a radio programme that the city’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, should have used the relative quiet created by the coronavirus pandemic to reach out to the opposition and mend fences.

“As the pandemic became stable and society was relatively peaceful in the past few months, it was a good opportunity for the chief executive to again interact with the pan-democratic lawmakers, to re-establish their working relationships,” Chan said. “Instead, she worsened the divide.”