As new political groups field candidates, pro-business Liberal Party hopes to expand its presence in city’s legislature
TONY.CHEUNG@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Wednesday, 01 June, 2016, 2:35pm
District Council member Dominic Lee Tsz-king could be sizing up a run for a Legco seat in September. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
The Liberal Party could field three new candidates in the New Territories and the business sector in a bold plan to win seven to eight seats in the Legislative Council poll in September, the party’s honorary chairman revealed.
James Tien Pei-chun, who represents the New Territories East constituency, also confirmed on Wednesday that 32-year-old district councillor Dominic Lee Tsz-king could lead the party’s slate in the constituency in September, with Tien slotted in second place in an attempt to get both elected.
Yuen Long district councillor Chow Wing-kan, 49, could seek to reclaim the party’s seat in New Territories West, while Joseph Chan Ho-lim, 39, could challenge the Business and Professionals Alliance’s Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung in a commercial functional constituency. Lam quit the Liberal Party in 2008.
Tien said his party was mulling the bold strategy as their five seats in the 70-strong Legco were not enough for them to be “a powerful middleman” between the pro-establishment and pan-democratic blocs, which respectively have 43 and 27 lawmakers in the chamber.
Referring to the tense relationship between Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and the pan-democrats, Tien said: “With more seats, I hope we can influence the government so that it would not boycott the pan-democrats … The chief executive should communicate with the pan-democrats.”
He believed that if the Liberals and pan-democrats held almost half of the next Legco’s seats, officials would be keener to engage them.
New Territories East was regarded as a pan-democratic stronghold as the camp won six out of nine seats in the constituency in 2012. The League of Social Democrats’ “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung topped the tally with 48,295 votes, while Tien was elected with 31,016 votes, or 6.7 per cent of the tally.
However, Tien said on Wednesday that according to a public opinion survey recently conducted by his party, his support rating in New Territories East was about 14 per cent, while Lee’s rating was about 4 per cent.
“We might need 70,000 to 80,000 votes to win two seats in September,” Tien suggested. “But if our slate is supported by 18 per cent … or even 11 per cent of the voters, we cannot say for sure whether we will succeed or fail.”
Tien believed that vote totals for his potential rivals in the constituency could drop as newly-formed groups would be fielding their own candidates in the race.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1961504/hong-kong-political-party-seeks-powerful-middleman-status
