Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing camp to do away with district council elections
Former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying wants to liquidate Hong Kong's elected district councils, won by pro-democracy candidates in a landslide vote in 2019. Inoperative since 2021, their mandate expires at the end of this year. Meanwhile, police question trade unionists who want to organise a May Day march.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Hong Kong’s former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on Saturday told iCable in an interview that elections to Hong Kong’s district councils “are not necessarily”.
Leung, who is current vice chairperson of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), served as the head of government of the former British colony’s from 2012 to 2017, before Carrie Lam.
As reported by the Hong Kong Free Press news website, he wants to see district councils liquidated.
In the last elections in November 2019, pro-democracy candidates won a landslide, taking the majority in 17 of 18 councils with a record participation of over 70 per cent of those eligible to vote.
After China imposed its national security law in Hong Kong, most district councillors resigned in protest in July 2021 when they were required to take an oath of allegiance to the government, making the councils inoperative.
As councils are elected every four years, the next round is scheduled for this year. But back in October 2022, Hong Kong’s current Chief Executive, John Lee, announced a "review on district administration" to ensure that district councils are run in line with Hong Kong’s “patriots-only” leadership requirements.
In 2021, the rules to elect Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo) were modified, with only 20 out of 90 members elected by direct suffrage and introducing a control commission favourable to Beijing to select candidates.
Now, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing rulers want to do away with voting to local bodies altogether, even sham elections.
“Basically [the District Council] is an organisation that accepts consultations. There are a lot of consultation bodies in Hong Kong, some even have some administrative powers, such as the Housing Authority and the Urban Renewal Authority, neither of those are formed by elections,” Leung said.
In his view, “having public elections does not mean being progressive,” citing as an example the elections to the city’s Legislative Council before its recent overhaul.
Meanwhile, trade union activists Joe Wong and Denny To, who were planning a May Day march in Hong Kong on 1 May, reported on social media that they were questioned by police about their funding for the event and how they expect to prevent violent groups, i.e. to pro-democracy protesters, from "hijacking” it.
For Secretary for Security Chris Tang, "words are weapons" and anyone who uses them to incite others to commit a crime will be punished.
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17/04/2021 13:08
