Dual membership ‘boosts FTU-DAB contender’s bid’
A rarely seen dual-membership of two major political parties in Hong Kong will boost chances of a win for Bill Tang Ka-piu, the pro-establishment camp’s Legislative Council by-election candidate for the New Territories East geographical constituency, a veteran legislator and Tang’s party colleague believes.
Tang stands as a member of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions — the city’s largest labor party — and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong — the city’s biggest political party.
Explaining the dual membership’s rationale, Wong Kwok-kin, legislator and FTU vice-president, said the arrangement would enlist the DAB’s full support for Tang. It would also increase his odds of winning the campaign.
The FTU and DAB have close relations and are like brothers, Wong told China Daily. However, in elections, it is not easy to convince some DAB core volunteers and supporters to fully back someone who is not a party member, he said.
The DAB proposed that Tang join the party and participate in the by-election, explained Wong. He added that “Tang is the FTU’s natural son who has been adopted by the DAB”.
In this by-election, Tang will have the entire pro-establishment camp behind him, notably the Heung Yee Kuk and the New Territories Association of Societies in rural areas.
The FTU has only become more actively involved in elections since 2012, Wong said. As the DAB has two teams in NT East, they could not offer much help to the FTU, he noted.
Similarly, the rural forces did not help much because they either sent their own candidates or supported people from other organizations such as the DAB in the 2012 and 2016 LegCo elections, he said.
“Now as this is a by-election that both the DAB and the rural groups are not competing in, they can focus their support for Tang as the only pro-establishment candidate,” Wong said when discussing the advantages Tang will enjoy by the arrangement.
Tang lost his 2016 LegCo election bid but the political and social climate had changed significantly now, as the voices of localism, “selfdetermination” and “Hong Kong independence” had been curbed. Wong thought the current atmosphere also benefited Tang.
Tang’s biggest opponent is Gary Fan Kwok-wai from the Neo Democrats, the selected representative of the “pandemocratic” camp.
“Yet Fan is an unpopular person in the opposition camp, given his feuds with the Democratic Party (of which he was a member) and the mainstream opposition parties, sparking doubts as to whether the opposition would truly rally for him,” he added. Wong said he thought this also gave Tang an advantage.
Nevertheless, Wong admitted that even if Tang won the by-election, he had to work very hard to retain his seat in the 2020 general election.
“If Tang wins, he will come under the FTU banner again and concentrate more on labor issues. We hope if he comes back, he will maximize the next two and half years to enrich his experience and enhance his services to his constituencies in preparation for 2020,” he said.
Wong also said he is unimpressed by some in the “pandemocratic” camp who seek to overturn the Plan B of their “primary” poll in the Kowloon West geographical constituency, and come up with their preferred candidate.
He also believes there are strong forces behind the scenes seeking to manipulate the “pan-democratic” camp.
“The power is so huge that it forces the Democratic Party, which strongly dislikes Fan, to back him,” he observed. “Equally, Frederick Fung Kinkee, an old hand who was so keen on joining the by-election regardless of turning the tables against his younger party colleagues, ruled himself out as the Plan B.”
Also competing in the NT East constituency are Estella Chan Yuk-ngor, Christine Fong Kwok-shan, Joyce Chiu Pui-yuk and Nelson Wong Sing-chi.