Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/hong-kong/article/2165257/pan-dems-cannibalise-one-their-own
Opinion/ Hong Kong

Pan-dems cannibalise one of their own

Former lawmaker Frederick Fung is being roasted by yellow ribbon media outlets for saying he may run in a by-election if Lau Siu-lai is disqualified

Former legislator Frederick Fung Kin-kee. Photo: Winson Wong

No sooner had disqualified lawmaker Lau Siu-lai announced her bid in the November by-election for the Kowloon West constituency, than a united front had already been formed.

No, I don’t mean the usual communist variety, but the pan-democratic type. Practically every yellow ribbon media outfit has been out in force attacking fellow pan-democrat and former legislator Frederick Fung Kin-kee.

Fung’s crime? It’s for announcing that he might – might – run in the by-election in the event that Lau is disqualified by the election authorities.

Note that he is not saying he will run against Lau, the opposition’s so-called plan A, but its plan B, that is Lee Cheuk-yan, Lau’s Labour Party comrade.

In fact, Lau joined the party for the sole purpose of having Lee as a second by-election choice. And this has become the consensus plan B for the entire opposition camp, so how dare Fung not play along!

Both CitizenNews and Stand News simultaneously ran the same op-ed with the anonymous byline “Middle-class citizen”.

“Fung, if you want to run, just run. But stop making petty gestures to divide the pan-democratic camp,” it said. “We should allow him to run, so when he loses, let him get a taste of being a street rat. Let him disappear from the political stage once and for all.”

In another piece, CitizenNews columnist and former Post political editor Chris Yeung wrote that Fung provided a negative example on how not to behave as a sunset politician – “knowing when to quit”.

“If you keep making the wrong turn, you end up at a dead-end street,” he wrote.

I actually agree with my former Post colleague, but exactly the same things could be said about Lee.

You could read Yeung’s whole article and replace the name Fung Kin-kee with Lee Cheuk-yan, and it would be equally applicable, maybe more so. If Fung is a has-been, so is Lee.

Between the two elderly pols, there is little difference in electoral appeal besides the one being supported, and the other rejected, by the opposition. So much for democracy and tolerance for dissent.

Meanwhile, hkpeanut.com, the more downmarket yellow ribbon outlet, mocked and shouted obscenities at Fung for half an hour on its online, radio and YouTube channels. I won’t be quoting any of this in a family newspaper.

If you think only leftist media gang up on opponents, well, think again. This is the yellow ribbon press cannibalising one of its own.