Hong Kong democrats’ plan to push for universal suffrage suffered a major blow yesterday after a third pro-Beijing party said it would boycott a by-election triggered by opposition lawmakers.
The Federation of Trade Unions announced it would not participate in the poll, sparked by the resignations of five pro-democracy lawmakers last month in the hope of creating a “referendum” on democratic reform in the financial hub.
Cheng Yiu-tong (鄭耀棠), the federation’s president, said the upcoming polls were meaningless and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“The by-elections are a farce. Why should we be a part of the farce?” he told reporters.
Cheng also lashed out at the democrats for using words such as “uprising,” “referendum” and “liberation” in their campaign, which critics said imply a plan to overthrow the existing regime.
The latest boycott announcement followed similar moves by the other two major pro-Beijing parties in Hong Kong’s legislature — the Liberal Party and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong — and threatens to further trivialize the democrats’ campaign.
Beijing has expressed “grave concern” and condemned the referendum plan as a blatant challenge to the Basic Law, the so-called “mini-constitution” promulgated in Hong Kong after Britain returned the city to China in 1997.
Democrats have called for universal suffrage in the city in 2012, but the Chinese government has said Hong Kong’s chief executive can only be directly elected in 2017 at the earliest and the legislature in 2020.
At present, only half of Hong Kong’s 60-seat legislature is directly elected from five geographical constituencies. The remaining “functional constituency” seats are largely selected by pro-China business elites.
An 800-member election committee picked by Beijing chooses the city’s chief executive, a job that replaced the post of governor after 1997.
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