On Sept. 10, Hong Kong held its second Legislative Council (Legco) election since its handover to China in 1997. The Democratic Party
The third largest party is the pro-business Liberal Party, which also favors Beijing.
Among the Legco's 60 seats, the number of directly elected seats was increased to 24, but that did not help the Democratic Party in any way. The Democratic Party now has only 18 seats -- not enough to assert any meaningful influence. It has been reviewing the reasons why the results turned out to its disadvantage. Similar issues are also likely to emerge in Taiwan if it were to unite with China.
Under Chinese rule, the operational costs of the Democratic Party can only come from small private donations and portions of salaries given by their legislators. They are not allowed to contact foreign organizations or receive financial support from them.
That makes it difficult for the party to sponsor campaign activities or promote itself. In contrast, the DAB gets massive donations from Hong Kong conglomerates and Chinese businesses. The money enables them to host numerous large-scale events, curry favor with voters and expand their power base. They also have enough money to spend on election campaigns. In contrast, the democrats are still depending on anti-Beijing sentiment left over from the Tiananmen Massacre and are not actively expanding their voter base.
The Beijing and SAR governments basically give the democrats a wide berth, while taking great pains to nurture the DAB and other parties of its ilk. For example, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa
As a result, in the eyes of the people of Hong Kong, the DAB appears to be the only party capable of working for them.
The media environment has also changed since the handover. Not surprisingly, Beijing's mouthpieces have remained in their same old ruts. But the private-run media has also cut or sidelined their coverage of the democrats, either because the media bosses are investing in China or cooperating with Chinese busi-nesses, or because rubbing Beijing the wrong way might hurt their advertising income.
Conversely, pro-communist groups are gaining more media coverage. Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee
After the Gary Cheng scandal broke in the Apple Daily
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
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
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