Pro-establishment parties, senior officials ‘do not want rivals to score points ahead of Legislative Council election, chief executive poll’
GARY CHEUNG AND JOYCE NG
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 17 January, 2016, 9:56pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 17 January, 2016, 10:33pm
Legco president Tsang Yok-sing believes no progress can be made on cross-party cooperation until after next year’s chief executive election. Photo: Nora Tam
Pro-establishment parties and top government officials have snubbed a call by a leader of the pan-democratic camp for cross-party cooperation on livelihood issues after the rejection of the electoral reform package in June.
Emily Lau Wai-hing, chairwoman of the Democratic Party, was given the cold shoulder even though her call for crossing the political aisle was relayed by Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing.
READ MORE: Hong Kong Democratic Party leader Emily Lau decides not to seek re-election in 2016
The snub is testament to the depth of political rancour in Hong Kong as the legislature faces filibusters over contentious government bills.
Tsang believes that Beijing, the Hong Kong government and the pro-establishment camp do not want the pan-democrats to score points from achievements delivered by a cross-party coalition ahead of this year’s Legco election and next year’s chief executive poll.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post last week, Tsang said Lau discussed with him the possibility of cross-party collaboration after the government proposal for electing the chief executive by universal suffrage next year was voted down in June
“Emily suggested parties across the political spectrum should sit down for talks on livelihood issues and put forward packages to the government,” the Beijing-friendly heavyweight said.
Tsang said he subsequently put Lau’s message to pro-establishment parties and some senior government officials.
“But unfortunately nobody echoed her views,” the Legco president said.
In 2001, Lau spearheaded an eight-party coalition which successfully forced the government to incorporate its suggestions, such as a waiver of property rates and quarantine of residents in a block in Amoy Gardens in Kowloon Bay at the height of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.
But the coalition collapsed after the 2004 Legco election. Lau believed that Beijing did not want parties across the political spectrum to work together, while the Hong Kong government considered such a united front a threat to the executive-led system.
Lau confirmed she had discussed the idea with Tsang. “Hong Kong people would suffer if the two rival camps are busy fighting each other and fail to get things done,” she said.
“You can’t force the administration to do things unless parties across the political spectrum work together,” Lau said.
She said she had also raised the idea with Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Chan Yuen-han and Liberal Party honorary chairman James Tien Pei-chun in the past two years.
But Tsang said there was no realistic hope of resolving the deadlock at least until after the 2017 chief executive election.
“From the viewpoint of the central government and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, there is a need to mobilise voters to ‘vote out’ pan-democrats from Legco to ensure smoother government operations,” he said.
“Obviously the central and Hong Kong governments and many people in the pro-establishment camp are not willing to let pan-democrats score points from the achievements made by a cross-party coalition before the upcoming Legco election and next year’s chief executive poll,” Tsang said.
In March last year, Leung urged Hong Kong electors to “vote out” pan-democrats in the Legco election if they are unhappy with the camp’s filibustering in the legislature and the Occupy Central protests in 2014.
Lau lamented that Beijing and the Hong Kong government had been citing “rubbish reasons” to oppose cross-party cooperation in the past decade.
Video: scmp.com/jtsang
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1902201/hong-kong-conflict-pan-democrat-emily-laus-proposal-cross
