Jason Y Ng

As I See It | Hong Kong’s youngest political party Demosisto undeterred by a year of false starts and setbacks

Jason Y. Ng says the young opposition politicians have not only had to deal with legal action, personal attacks and the everyday challenges thrown their way by the authorities, but they also face a steep learning curve responding to the needs of the people they serve

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Demosisto chairman Nathan Law speaks at the party’s first anniversary celebration last month. Photo: Demosisto

Jason Y Ng

Published: 12:58pm, 2 May 2017Updated: 12:58pm, 2 May 2017

“Demosisto’s anniversary celebration is officially activated!” announced the master of ceremony. It was a tongue-in-cheek parody of Benny Tai Yiu-ting, the law professor who had used a similar battle cry when he launched Occupy Central nearly three years ago.

At the microphone was Derek Lam Shun-hin, a core member of one of Hong Kong’s youngest political parties. Lam has recently been arrested for unlawful assembly and faces months in prison if convicted. But the 23-year-old is unfazed. Ever since he beat leukaemia a decade ago and became a loyal sidekick to Joshua Wong Chi-fung, he has prepared himself for whatever his government throws at him. The duo, along with fellow party members Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Agnes Chow Ting, are all expected to be charged for their roles in the Occupy movement. Jail time or not, the student politicians are taking it in their stride.

Stride – that happened to be the theme of their first anniversary dinner that took place to great media fanfare one Saturday evening last month. “As new kids on the block, we’ve tried not to overpromise and under-deliver,” chairman Law half-joked in his opening remarks. “It’s been a year of personal growth.”

And it’s been a year of false starts and setbacks. Their first press conference to announce the party’s establishment 12 months ago was an episode they would rather forget: the venue was too small, audiovisual equipment malfunctioned and reporters were kept waiting for over an hour. The botched launch was red meat for radical localists who pounced on the blunder and jeered in schadenfreude delight.

They’re young, vocal and very, very determined ... but how do Hong Kong’s newest political parties differ?

Nathan Law (centre) celebrates with fellow Demosisto members Agnes Chow and Joshua Wong after winning a seat in Hong Kong Island constituency. Photo: Dickson Lee

Student leader Nathan Law hopes to represent a generation

Demosistians had barely recovered from their rocky start when they found themselves going full steam ahead in preparation for the Legislative Council election. Because Wong was too young to run, Law had to fly solo in his bid for an elected seat. In the end, he swept up over 50,000 votes and, at age 23, became the youngest ever Legco member in the city’s history and the only politician in Asia to enter the legislature as a student. But like a star-crossed lover in a Cantonese soap opera, the newly-minted lawmaker saw his honeymoon cut short as soon as it began.