Opinion | What Hong Kong pan-democrats must say to even get to the election starting line, and other helpful hints

The sight of two honourable men with essentially similar views fighting tooth and nail against each other in a Legislative Council by-election could mean only one thing. The pan-democrats had failed to learn the lessons of their last set of humiliating election results and the outcome would be the same: a shocking defeat.

Thus, the two heavyweights, Lee Cheuk-yan and Frederick Fung Kin-kee, succeeded in knocking each other out and a political neophyte, Chan Hoi-yan, won the bout. I am not impressed by the argument of some commentators that because Chan gained slightly more votes than Lee and Fung together, the split in the pan-democrat camp did not affect the outcome. The mere fact that there was a split could have persuaded some voters to stay away from the polls altogether, and others – fed up by the infighting among the old dinosaurs – to decide to give a fresh face a chance.

The November result had loud echoes of what had happened in the by-elections in March: then, fighting to regain three “sure win” seats in the geographical constituencies, an inept campaign saw the pan-democrats lose one and barely scrape home in the other two.

In a column in this newspaper at the time, I pointed out four lessons they urgently needed to learn: cut all links with the pro-independence forces, because mature voters know this is a dead end; be much more selective in the issues on which they fight the government, and especially not obstruct routine public works projects; come down from their high horse and stick to grass roots issues; and, finally, stop the bickering and present a united front.