Opposition’s ‘radical behavior’ led to defeats
The opposition camp’s defeat in Sunday’s Legislative Council by-election should be a stern warning to them — as their radical and irrational behavior in recent years cost them dearly with voters, political experts said on Monday.
Local residents have grown impatient to political wrangles, due to a shift in people’s concerns about livelihood issues and economic development, they said.
Their remarks came after the camp lost the seat in the Kowloon West geographical constituency — often seen as one of the camp’s strongholds — for the second time, following their defeat in this constituency in March.
In the by-election, proestablishment candidate Rebecca Chan Hoi-yan polled 106,457 votes, beating her main rival Lee Cheukyan from the opposition camp. Moreover, her votes surpassed the total number received by Lee and another opposition representative, Frederick Fung Kin-kee.
Consecutive LegCo byelection losses in less than a year were very significant for the opposition camp, noted Lau Siu-kai, a political analyst. He believes the humiliating defeat on Sunday shows the opposition is losing the support of the people.
The latest loss also showed their power to mobilize people was waning too, added Lau, who is also vice-president of national think-tank Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
“The opposition’s campaign was not helped by internal strife within the camp, which is losing support of the middle class and young people, while Lee was not liked by the middle class because of his pro-labor stance,” he said.
“In fact, after the illegal ‘Occupy Central’ movement, most Hong Kong people crave peace, stability, prosperity, as well as law and order. They dislike people who make trouble and violate the law, thus undermining the opposition’s strength to play up political issues and mobilize people,” Lau added.
Asked whether the two defeats sounded an alarm bell for the opposition, Lau
The current social atmosphere is relatively peaceful as people are sick of political bickering.”
Ronny Tong Ka-wah, executive councilor
said the March defeat alone had been a warning to the opposition — who had never lost a by-election in the firstpast-the-post format before.
“My advice to them is they become a ‘loyal opposition’. And they should be willing to operate within the Constitution and Hong Kong’s Basic Law. They don’t need to agree with the government on every issue. If they wish to make suggestions, they should present them in a rational, peaceful and pragmatic manner,” Lau said.
Echoing Lau, Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a senior counsel and member of the city’s Executive Council, said that the current social atmosphere is relatively peaceful as people are sick of political bickering.
If the opposition camp keeps taking advantage of social tensions and promoting an anti-government attitude, they are “putting their political future in jeopardy”, said Tong.
He suggested the camp abandon this radical approach and negotiate rationally with the special administrative region and central governments on issues truly beneficial to local people.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s pragmatic approach to governance has reduced political polarization. Therefore, more attention was being paid to economic development, said James Sung Lapkung, political analyst at City University of Hong Kong.
“Unaware of the trend, the opposition camp has kept touting political agendas, which caused its defeat,” said Sung. This ignorance is especially fatal in the Kowloon West constituency, where grassroots voters who think much about livelihood issues are the majority, he added.