Ip welcomes unity within pro-establishment camp
Hong Kong’s pro-establishment camp has “never before” been so united in contesting the Legislative Council by-elections, New People’s Party Chairperson Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said in an exclusive interview with China Daily.
The three major parties in the camp — NPP, Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions — will field only one candidate in each of the three geographical constituencies to avoid unnecessary competition, Ip said.
“The pro-establishment camp has reached the consensus to cooperate and help one another because we know the by-elections are very difficult battles,” Ip said.
According to the strategy, the DAB and FTU will help NPP candidate Judy Chan Ka-pui in the Hong Kong Island by-election, while the NPP and Civil Force will back DAB-FTU candidate Bill Tang Ka-piu in the New Territories East by-election campaign.
The NPP will also rally for Kowloon West DAB candidate Vincent Cheng Wingshun, she explained.
The two rival camps — pro-establishment and “pan-democrat” — will contest with all their might to secure their core supporters’ votes. But Ip said the choices of middle-of-the-road voters were most “crucial and decisive”.
Ip praised the three proestablishment candidates as working very hard but said they will face serious challenges. Referring to the 2016 data, she said the pro-establishment camp took just 34 percent, 38 percent and 40 percent-plus of the total number of votes in NT East, Kowloon West and Hong Kong Island geographical constituencies, respectively.
The pro-establishment camp has reached the consensus to cooperate and help one another because we know the by-elections are very difficult battles.”
No backfire
She had feared disqualification of Agnes Chow Ting, who intended to contest in the Hong Kong Island constituency, would create a political backlash against Chan.
However, during the past few days of campaigning with Chan, Ip said she had not felt any change of sentiment, with only one resident talking to her about the disqualification.
Ip said she had even hoped Chow was not disqualified, as she would have been an easier opponent for Chan to beat than former Democratic Party member Au Nok-hin.
She thinks many voters would choose a mature, experienced district councilor like Chan instead of Chow, who is a barely 21-year-old undergraduate with no experience.
The “pan-democratic” camp has been calculating in this by-election, Ip argued. If Chow replaced Nathan Law Kwun-chung, who was disqualified by the court for taking his oath improperly, it would just be a radical person replacing another radical person and that would not affect the chances of traditional “pan-democrats” in the 2020 general election.
If Chow were allowed to participate in the by-election, she might not be able to win because traditional “pan-democrats” would not ask their supporters to vote for her, Ip said.
She remained cautiously optimistic about Chan’s campaign. “Now Judy’s chance would depend on whether the candidates would make mistakes and whether political bombshells would explode in the coming weeks.”
Future tactics
Asked whether it will not be easy to reach consensus again when it comes to the LegCo general election in 2020, Ip said there would not be a big problem. This is because a tacit agreement has emerged over the years to avoid internal competition within the camp.
“My target supporters are the middle class, upper middle class and professional people,” Ip said. In the 2012 election, Ip did not rally in the Eastern District, a base of the DAB’s Christopher Chung Shu-kun, and in that year four pro-establishment candidates were elected.
Also, in 2016, she did not lobby for votes from the Fujian community in order not to affect Horace Cheung Kwok-kwan of the DAB and Aron Kwok Wai-keung of the FTU.
“In fact, my source of voters overlaps largely with the pro-business Liberal Party in our camp, as well as the Civic Party in the opposition camp. My votes do not overlap with the DAB and FTU,” Lau said.
In the Hong Kong Island geographical constituency, four nominees compete for one seat — Chan, Edward Yum Liang-hsien, Ng Dickhay and Au Nok-hin.
Competing in the New Territories East constituency are Bill Tang, Estella Chan Yuk-ngor, Gary Fan Kwokwai, Christine Fong Kwokshan, Joyce Chiu Pui-yuk and Nelson Wong Sing-chi.
In Kowloon West, Cheng faces Edward Yiu Chungyim and Jonathan Tsoi Tungchau.