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Pro-China party rocked by recent Hong Kong losses

For 20 years, Wong Mo-tai helped find lodgings for battered wives, fix leaking pipes and plant shrubs and trees to help spruce up her tiny suburban district in the northern part of Hong Kong.

So it was a shock when the 55-year-old councillor with years of community service behind her lost her ward to a 24-year-old fresh-faced newcomer from the Frontier, a tiny but prominent pro-democracy group, in last Sunday's local polls.

"It's true that we lost votes because of our close association with the government. If not for that, I would not have lost," said Wong of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), the biggest pro-China party, which lost heavily to the pro-democracy camp.

"A few of us lost by such small margins and we've been working so hard. Yet we lost to people who have done nothing," she said.

Wong is one of many DAB councilors, quintessential worker ants who were defeated in the polls after having devoted years, if not decades, to working full-time for their communities.

Many of them have been re-elected several times before, thanks to a solid core of support from residents because of their close attention to the nuts and bolts, and making sure that everything works in their neighborhoods.

Funded by pro-China busi-nesses, the DAB frequently gives away free banquets and holiday tours, which have gone a long way in winning the hearts of residents.

But Wong and other DAB cadres were overtaken by political events after 500,000 people protested against the government in July for its blunders and a controversial anti-subversion law. Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) later withdrew the planned law.

Although the anger has moderated, many new voters chose to punish the DAB -- a stalwart supporter of the China-backed local government -- for its close association with the administration, handing the democrats a resounding victory.

The DAB clinched only 62 of the 206 seats it contested while the Democratic Party won 95 of the 120 seats it fought for, which analysts saw as a demand for more self-determination and voting rights -- issues that communist Beijing is deeply uneasy about.

But analysts say it is too early to tell if China would allow its biggest experiment yet in democracy to go ahead.

DAB leader Tsang Yok-shing (曾鈺成) has offered to quit as chairman after what he said was the party's "worst defeat."

Tsang has asked Beijing-backed Tung to consider if he still wants to keep him in his Cabinet if the DAB accepts his resignation offer next Tuesday.

Reformists in the DAB are demanding a reassessment of its relationship with the government, or even that the party abandon it altogether ahead of next year's elections.

Such a move would be disastrous for Tung, who relies on the DAB to support his policies in the legislature.

The party began distancing itself from the government after the July protests, fearing a backlash, and it now appears it could adopt a more confrontational stance.
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