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Opinion | Hong Kong’s unrest is a vote of no confidence in the opposition. Pan-democrats must get out of their rut
- When pan-democrats lost two seats in 2018, some chalked it up to a changing political environment. The truth is that if the opposition wasn’t so dysfunctional, protesters wouldn’t be taking matters into their own hands in the streets
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Why you can trust SCMP
At this point in 2019, it is generally assumed and accepted that Hong Kong’s pro-establishment camp will suffer a devastating blow in the district council elections come November.
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Instead, pro-establishment lawmakers are looking ahead to the Legislative Council election next year, and holding out the hope that a year will be long enough for people to forgive, or at least forget. More pertinently, they are hoping they can count on the pan-democrats to screw up again.
This is not entirely wishful thinking: the pan-democrats do have a history of sabotaging themselves, with the most recent instance being, well, unbelievably recent. Just in 2018, they managed to lose not one but two geographical constituency by-elections triggered by the disqualification of lawmakers over oath-taking.
Some tried to chalk this up to a profound change in the political environment – something about people being resigned to Beijing’s increasing assertiveness. But as we have seen in the past 15 weeks, many in Hong Kong are defiant, not resigned.
In 2018, Edward Yiu Chung-yim – who would lose to Vincent Cheng Wing-shun of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong – simply acted as if the seat was his to take. He took for granted that he would have the support of traditional allies and voters alike.
As for Labour Party veteran Lee Cheuk-yan’s defeat to political rookie Chan Hoi-yan, there were many factors, the most apparent of which is how undemocratic the pan-democrats are in practice. For all its sloganeering, the pro-democracy camp has not been able to handle dissent without taking an autocratic approach, and has disillusioned many people.
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