{"id":10558,"date":"2015-06-19T02:02:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T16:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=10558"},"modified":"2015-06-19T18:46:30","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T10:46:30","slug":"hong-kong-fake-democracy-roundly-rejected-in-legislative-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2015\/06\/19\/10558\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong: Fake democracy roundly rejected in legislative vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government proposals end in\u00a0fiasco as Beijing loyalists misjudge voting rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

Socialist Action reporters in Hong Kong<\/p>\n

In the end only eight pro-government lawmakers voted for the government\u2019s deeply unpopular electoral reform\u00a0\u2013\u00a0branded as \u201cfake democracy\u201d\u00a0\u2013\u00a0in Hong Kong\u2019s legislature, the \u2018Legco\u2019, which voted on the package on Thursday 18 June.<\/p>\n

The electoral reform, which sought to replace today\u2019s elite-only selection of the Chief Executive with an Iran-style controlled election that widened the franchise to\u00a0all voters but only for handpicked candidates, was defeated by 28 votes to 8. The defeat was expected but not in such crushing terms, which was due to a \u2018miscommunication\u2019 by pro-government lawmakers who staged a walkout believing this could delay the vote while they waited for an additional supporter to arrive.<\/p>\n

Whether due to faulty math or a misunderstanding of Legco procedures, the walkout backfired spectacularly, leaving a quorum of 37 lawmakers (including the Speaker who does not vote) inside the chamber and meaning that the vote went ahead without the government\u2019s most loyal supporters. There is great irony in this outcome given the intense propaganda from the same pro-government politicians over recent months, accusing the pan democrats \u2013 Hong Kong\u2019s liberal democratic opposition \u2013 of wanting to sabotage Hong Kong\u2019s future and bearing responsibility for blocking \u2018universal suffrage\u2019. While the pan-democrats had sufficient numbers (27 of 70 seats) to block the legislation which requires a two-thirds majority, the slapstick antics of\u00a0the pro-government camp put the result beyond any doubt.<\/p>\n

This incompetent performance from\u00a0its local representatives\u00a0has infuriated\u00a0the Chinese regime and\u00a0by stealing all the attention has complicated its\u00a0planned propaganda offensive\u00a0against the pan-democrats. Public splits and rancour have erupted within Hong Kong\u2019s pro-government camp and one prominent pro-Beijing politician\u00a0who took part in the walkout, Regina Ip\u00a0Lau Suk-yee of the New People\u2019s Party, burst into tears during a radio interview. A troupe of pro-Beijing lawmakers reportedly visited the Central Government Liaison Office, the headquarters of the Chinese regime in Hong Kong, after the botched vote in order to offer apologies and\u00a0perhaps to receive a dressing down.<\/p>\n

There was widespread relief and celebration within the city\u2019s pro-democracy movement\u00a0after the vote, which killed off a proposal that served as\u00a0the trigger for last year\u2019s marathon 79-day \u2018Umbrella Revolution\u2019 of mass street protests and occupations. The question now is what strategy is needed to take the struggle forward? The collapse of the government\u2019s reform plan is to be welcomed as a setback for\u00a0the Chinese dictatorship. It wants to impose a fake election system upon Hong Kong in order to carry out further repressive measures in order to erode the partial democratic rights that have been won, and to increase Beijing\u2019s control. This plan has been dealt a blow. But clearly, this cannot be proclaimed as a victory for the democratic struggle which\u00a0has\u00a0not advanced and\u00a0which can only succeed by ending\u00a0the rule of the\u00a0one-party dictatorship. After the Legco vote the real struggle must begin.<\/p>\n

\"Vote\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Revolutionary struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pan-democrats will use this reverse for Beijing to try to rebuild their shaken support especially with next year\u2019s Legco elections in view. In recent years these parties have been widely\u00a0questioned for espousing a gradual compromise approach, believing\u00a0it to be\u00a0the only way to extract democratic concessions from Beijing. In fact, their cautious approach has failed to achieve real progress\u00a0in more than 30 years (under both British and Chinese rule), as shown by the fact that Hong Kong\u2019s undemocratic political system, openly dominated by a\u00a0billionaire elite, remains fundamentally unchanged. Mass frustration with the pan-democrats\u2019 lack of\u00a0\u00a0fight was a major factor in the eruption of last year\u2019s protests.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there are few signs of a rethink by the \u2018moderates\u2019 who lead\u00a0the pan-democratic camp. Leader of the Democratic Party, Emily Lau Wai-hing, said the Legco vote \u201csends a clear message to the central government and the international community that a new reform should be launched immediately.\u201d This is despite Beijing making it clear it will not contemplate democratic elections (because this could trigger a chain reaction in mainland China threatening the dictatorship\u2019s grip on power) and that\u00a0the\u00a0now rejected reform is its \u201cfinal\u201d offer. Yet the \u2018moderate\u2019 pan-democrats continue to \u2018flog the dead horse\u2019 of reform \u2013 despite Hong Kong\u2019s own experience and the lessons of history they still believe a parliamentary democracy can coexist with dictatorship within the same state.<\/p>\n

The fact that not a single pan-democratic legislator defected to support the government\u2019s reform\u00a0(as several did\u00a0in 2010) showed that these\u00a0politicians were under\u00a0extreme pressure from the masses after the Umbrella struggle. They were forced to veto the proposal, but unfortunately\u00a0are not prepared to change their basic position \u2013 of seeking negotiated and rather limited reforms \u2013 and thus cannot offer a\u00a0way forward for the struggle.\u00a0The danger with their approach is that the pan-democratic leaders will now try to de-mobilise and calm mass anger and the desire for struggle, which they find\u00a0more and more difficult to control. Lacking any ideas other than appealing to the dictatorship to\u00a0\u2018relaunch reform\u2019 \u00a0these parties will\u00a0undoubtedly try to shift the focus onto coming elections at the expense of new initiatives for mass struggle \u2013 when in fact\u00a0the\u00a0electoral struggle should be subordinated to\u00a0the needs of rebuilding a\u00a0mass movement.<\/p>\n

This shows the need for a new fighting leadership and organisations based on grassroots struggle to take the democracy struggle forward. The most important ingredient in this is the need for a working class party with a socialist programme linking revolutionary democratic demands against autocracy with the need to abolish a billionaire-ruled economic system that leads to increasing poverty and injustice. Such a movement needs to build democratic grassroots action committees \u2013 the lack of democratic control was the main weakness of the Umbrella protests which meant the movement could not spread and escalate to other more effective forms of collective mass resistance such as strikes and a political general strike. Crucially, the struggle must also be actively exported beyond Hong Kong\u2019s borders to have any chance of success, by appealing for mass solidarity action in China and\u00a0internationally.<\/p>\n

\"Pro-government<\/a>
Pro-government supporters outside the Legco.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government proposals end in\u00a0fiasco as Beijing loyalists misjudge voting rules<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":10561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[132,133,124],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-china","8":"category-hong-kong","9":"category-news"},"yoast_head":"\nHong Kong: Fake democracy roundly rejected in legislative vote - China Worker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2015\/06\/19\/10558\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hong Kong: Fake democracy roundly rejected in legislative vote - 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