JOYCE NGjoyce.ng@scmp.com
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 14 October, 2015, 3:45pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 14 October, 2015, 3:46pm
Regina Ip won the chair of the establishment subcommittee. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Hong Kong’s pro-establishment camp today regained the leadership of two key Legislative Council subcommittees that vet government funding requests.
The development came after the camp last week monopolised the leadership of the top two umbrella bodies in the legislature – the House Committee and the Finance Committee.
It marks a further souring of the relationship between pan-democrats and Beijing loyalists.
In the establishment subcommittee, Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee of the New People’s Party beat Kenneth Leung, chairman of the body in the last session, by 24 votes to 15.
Leung also lost his bid for vice-chairmanship to the Federation of Trade Unions’ Wong Kwok-kin.
That subcommittee makes recommendations to the finance committee on the government’s proposals for creating and deleting directorate posts, and for changes to the civil service structure. The finance committee has the final say.
During the election this morning, Ip was criticised by Democrat Helena Wong Pik-wan as “arrogant” after the former said she did not need to present a platform.
“It’s all about efficiency and chairing the meetings impartially,” Ip said. “There’s no need for a politicised platform.”
Similarly, in the public works subcommittee, former chairman Alan Leong Kah-kit, leader of the Civic Party, was defeated by the Business and Professionals Alliance’s Lo Wai-kwok by 28 votes to 20. Leong also lost his bid for the vice-chairmanship to the Liberal Party’s Frankie Yick Chi-ming.
The subcommittee makes recommendations to the finance committee on the government’s expenditure proposals for public works programme.
Last year, the pan-democrats, in a move that caught the rival camp unprepared, sent most of their members to these two subcommittees and formed the majority. That made it possible for them to take the chairmanships and the vice-chairmanships and start a “non-cooperation movement” to press the government for concessions on political reform, which ended in vain.
This year, the pro-Beijing camp has vowed to prevent this from happening and they outnumber pan-democrats in both subcommittees.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1867470/pan-democrats-shut-out-hong-kongs-pro-beijing-camp-regains
