HK Democrats criticize Beijing's scare tactics

Hong Kong's main pro-democracy party yesterday accused the Beijing government of using scare tactics to dissuade voters from electing democrats to the legislature in September.

The Democratic Party said weekend accusations by a leading Chinese political theorist that top democrats were considered "unpatriotic" and unfit to rule were part of a concerted effort to frighten off voters.

"We are not surprised by these kinds of tactics," said Democratic Party campaign chief and former legislator Li Wah-ming (李華明).

"They are using scare tactics to keep Hong Kong people from voting for democrats in the September election," Li said.

The government announced over the weekend that Legislative Council elections would be held on Sunday, Sept. 12.

Voters elect 60 members -- half drawn from geographical constituencies and the rest from so-called functional constituencies, voted by members of different trades and industries.

The news was followed by a diatribe released through China's official Xinhua news agency by Xu Chongde (許崇德), one of the drafters of the territory's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Fanning flames of an argument that has raged for weeks over the introduction of full democracy to the territory, Xu said that hardline opposition group The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Democratic Movement in China was not patriotic.

Patriotism the criteria Bei-jing has said should be used for deciding who was suitable to rule the city.

Xu said some legislators in the territory used "democracy as a tool to fool the public," a phrase many pundits say is a veiled reference to former Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee (李柱銘) and firebrand Frontier opposition party chief Emily Lau

(劉慧卿).

Li the outburst showed Beijing was scared and realized it had a lot to loose if democrats did well in the September polls.

"If democrats win a majority in the Legislative Council elections, it will be very awkward for the Chinese government," Li said.

"There will be democrats running major departments and a democrat will be the council's president. That position has a seat in the Chinese parliament -- it could cause a lot of upsets for the Chinese leadership," Li said.