Legco elections hold local lessons

Most DAB supporters and pro-China groups voted for the party despite the Gary Cheng scandal because they saw the scandal as a conspiracy set up by the democrats and the British, even though there is strong evidence supporting the case.

Such behavior, which creates an impression that your political stance is more important than judging what is right and wrong, is totally unbefitting of Hong Kong's status as an international metropolis.

Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄), a radical democrat, ran in the election on a "topple Tung" platform. As a voice representing Hong Kong's poorest, Leung had often taken recourse in strong physical actions. As a result, the politically frigid Hong Kong people had often rejected him as "overly radical." However, to everyone's surprise, he almost won a seat in the election by running on a radical platform the Democratic Party had been unwilling to take up. Leung's near success also sent off alarm bells -- the strong support for radicals may be a sign of growing public grievances.

How the Beijing and SAR governments -- as well as Hong Kong's various political organizations and parties -- plan to handle these issues remains to be seen.

Paul Lin is a political commentator on Hong Kong issues.

Translated by Francis Huang