Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.   Chief Executive Donald Tsang may have lost his debate with leading democracy advocate Audrey Eu but he won the day by allying with her moderate Democratic Party opponents to broker a compromise that saved his political reform package from certain defeat.  Beijing, for its part, can now correctly claim that Hong Kong has accepted its protracted timetable for universal suffrage elections without any guarantees or definitions as to just what Beijing means by “universal suffrage.”  And last but not least, foreign diplomats who have been fretting for months over the potential for political instability here can now report back to their ministries that the crisis has been averted – for now.

           Two days after the June 17 debate, Beijing did a sudden about-face and approved the Democratic Party’s latest counter-proposal after repeated rejections.  An amended version of the government’s political reform package incorporating the compromise was approved by the Legislative Council in a two-part motion on June 24 and 25.  The vote was:  46 to 13 for Chief Executive (CE) election reform; 46 to 12 for the amended Legislative Council (Legco) changes.  Donald Tsang had votes to spare above the two-thirds super-majority 40 needed to guarantee passage. 

          Dissenters included Civic Party and League of Social Democrats (LSD) legislators plus one recently-resigned ex-Democratic Party member. The 13^th vote during the second round would have been cast by “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung (LSD) who was escorted from the chamber for disruptive behavior and did not return when the final division was called.

             In fact, little has been settled.  A full-blown crisis may have been averted, but the disruptive potential is limitless since the bill was passed on the basis of an 11^th-hour compromise the details and implications of which were not even debated by all members of the democratic camp much less explained to the community at large.  

THE GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSALS

               To recap:  the original reform package dealt only with the coming 2012 elections.  It proposed to increase the size of the CE Election Committee from 800 members to 1,200 and the size of Legco from 60 seats to 70, but without changing the conservative design of either body.  The council is currently composed of 30 directly-elected legislators and 30 elected by special-interest Functional Constituencies (FC).  The potential electorate of the former is 3.4 million registered voters.  The FCs are elected by only 220,000 individuals (Nov. 23/09 post).  Democratic legislators voted down a similar set of government proposals in 2005.

             The government’s package provoked controversy especially on three points.  First, there was no indication as to how the promised goal of full universal suffrage elections for both the CE and Legco was to be achieved by 2017 and 2020, respectively, in accordance with a timetable Beijing announced in December 2007. The shorthand local term for this problem is lack of a roadmap, which Audrey Eu mentioned repeatedly during her debate with Tsang.  Second, the existing 28 FCs were frozen. Not a single reform measure was proposed for their design or composition despite multiple defects that critics spelled out in great detail (April 16 post).

          Third, the 10 new Legco seats were to be divided equally between the geographic constituencies for direct election, and indirectly-elected FCs.  But the five new FCs were different from the existing FCs based on trades, occupations, and special interests.  The new FC seats would be filled by indirect election, that is, by the 400+ members of Hong Kong’s 18 District Councils.  These are advisory bodies devoted to local neighborhood amenities.

              For reasons spelled out elsewhere, these District Councils are now dominated by the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), known in private but never acknowledged in public as the Chinese Communist Party-Hong Kong branch (March 31 post).   The five new seats were effectively being handed to the DAB and its allies as a free pass into Legco without having to face the general electorate.  The precedent for such indirect CCP-dominated elections based on small constituencies at the lowermost level is the mainland People’s Congress system, although the new FCs were not promoted in those terms.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY COMPROMISE

         Initially, late last year when pan-democrats split into moderates and radicals (the latter term is already falling out of use here due to official attempts to demonize “progressive activists”), Democratic Party leaders and their partners were still pressing for answers on the three main points at issue.  But from the start, moderates tended to phrase their demands in contradictory terms leaving the impression that they were uncertain as to what their demands should be.  Radicals mocked them as “hula dancers,” constantly swaying one way and then another.  

           For example, moderates were adamant that “we will never compromise our principles.”  Yet some periodically said they would be satisfied with a simple statement indicating that Beijing’s intentions for “ultimate” universal suffrage were “genuine.”   Moderates seemed not to realize that Beijing could easily provide such a statement, which it eventually did, without defining what it actually meant by universal suffrage.

            This was in marked contrast to Audrey Eu’s Civic Party and its LSD ally.  The two parties launched their five-district referendum campaign on the basis of clear demands for the abolition of all FCs and the guarantee of one-person-one-vote in elections that allow equal voting rights for all.  Still, moderates did usually say they wanted to get rid of the old FCs and find ways of making the government’s plan for the new ones “more democratic.”  The Democratic Party, as the dominant member of the Universal Suffrage Alliance, also called for negotiations with official Beijing representatives and this demand materialized in May.

          Beijing nevertheless refused to budge on any of the three points except to issue a vague definition of universal suffrage that could be applied both to mainland-style Communist Party-dominated elections and their Western-style counterparts (Qiao Xiaoyang statement, Wen Wei Po, South China Morning Post, June .   The Democratic Party was nevertheless key to finding a solution since the party had nine Legislative Councilors (now reduced to eight).  Donald Tsang could always count on 36 pro-government votes and he needed only four more to produce the necessary two-thirds majority in the 60-seat council.

            Ultimately, besides the definitional problem, party leaders also abandoned demands for abolition of the old FCs and concentrated solely on election arrangements for the five new FC seats.  This was evidently undertaken without any discussion of their future evolution much less that of the electoral system as a whole.  The party’s final bottom-line bargaining position was a proposal to open up all the five new FC seats to the entire 3.4 million electorate, minus the 220,000 individuals registered to vote in the old FCs.  The 400 directly-elected District Councilors would nominate the candidates but would otherwise not be able to determine the outcome.   No other details of the agreement are available.  Specific electoral arrangements including constituency size, nominating procedures, and voting methods are yet to be decided. 

          Initially, Beijing refused to accept this Democratic Party counter-proposal, the DAB lobbied hard against it, and all 23 pan-democratic legislators joined in declaring they were set to veto the package.   On June 14, the chief publicity official at Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong put down the Democratic Party’s counter-proposal with a dismissive Chinese phrase.  He said the plan was as inappropriate as “adding feet when drawing a snake.”  It seemed to spell doom for the government’s package and this was the state of affairs as of June 17 when the Tsang-Eu debate took place.  According to reports afterward, national leaders decided the next day to approve the counter-proposal, fearing an upsurge of “radical” democratic influence in Hong Kong if the official reform plan was again vetoed.  Donald Tsang had also warned them of this likely outcome (Ming Pao Daily, South China Morning Post, June 22).   

         Chinese and Hong Kong government leaders saw a threat, similar to the angry public mood that derailed their national security legislation in July 2003, and acted to defuse the emerging crisis.   Hong Kong’s two-pronged radical/moderate strategy may have been a messy exercise in democracy movement politicking.  But the overwhelming public response to Audrey Eu’s strong demand for a universal suffrage roadmap, in combination with the Democratic Party’s insistence on a less threatening alternative, produced the unexpected Beijing turnaround.  Far from hindering that result, the effect of the much-lamented split between radicals and moderates created the conditions necessary for a successful outcome.

          The real moral of this story, however, is that it is possible to push back against Beijing and the growing pressure for mainland-style political integration.  This sequence has now occurred twice including the decision to shelve the national security legislation in July 2003.  These “victories” were tentative and partial, and both required a prodigious amount of volunteer community engagement that may be difficult to sustain over time.  But they are victories nonetheless.

IMPLICATIONS

           News of Beijing’s U-turn broke on Sunday morning, June 20.   The regular Sunday noontime City Forum broadcast from Victoria Park was reduced to a shouting match and Democratic Party chairman, Albert Ho, had to be escorted from the scene by police.  More angry protests disrupted the mid-afternoon Universal Suffrage Alliance pep rally where the speeches of some of Hong Kong’s most respected democracy movement leaders were interrupted by cries of betrayal.

            A Democratic Party general meeting nevertheless endorsed the agreement early Tuesday morning after a heated five-hour debate and the deed was done.  The meeting also vetoed the suggestion raised by party elder Martin Lee for a two-week delay before the final Legco vote to allow time for public discussion of the compromise. Two of the party’s legislators were opposed to the deal because it violates the promises they made to their constituents but the party’s internal rules forbid independent voting.  One has resigned and others including Martin Lee are now considering whether or not to do the same.

          At first glance and especially from the perspective of pan-democrats’ year-long campaign for universal suffrage, the losses are enormous.  Probably, this was the last chance for democrats to have a significant impact on the course of Hong Kong’s political evolution.  That evolution is limited by the Basic Law and a legislative design, which relegates them to permanent minority status.  Conservative business interests have been lobbying intensely for an end to the threat of FC abolition and they, too, can breathe a sigh of relief because the threat has now been effectively removed.  This means the fight for “genuine” Western-style universal suffrage elections is probably lost and the most Hong Kong can hope for is some muddling variant of the mainland system.

         The Democratic Party claimed after the compromise was announced that Donald Tsang had misrepresented  its intent at his June 21  media briefing. His office, too, issued a clarification.  The party had not given up the struggle for universal suffrage, abolition of FCs, and so on. But Tsang could hardly be blamed for the misunderstanding.  Everyone else “misunderstood” as well since it is difficult to see how the party can do more than pay lip service to the struggle and raise non-binding motions in Legco that are invariably defeated by its conservative majority.

          One-time firebrand and now Democratic Party vice-chair, Emily Lau, is again threatening resignation if democratic principles are violated.  She did this several times during the campaign and fellow democrats put faith in her reputation.  Now she is addressing fears that the specific electoral arrangements for the five new FC seats will be designed to favor the people they were meant to benefit in the first place.  But after all the back-downs and side-stepping during the past six months, she had better find something she can actually resign over, or stop threatening, or her credibility will be lost for sure. 

           Concerning those new electoral arrangements, the legislation necessary to set up the new FC elections will be an ordinary bill and pan-democrats’ 23-seat minority veto power will not apply.  So if Lau wants a fair shake for her candidates she is going to have to ask the DAB’s permission since they and their allies control 36 seats in the 60-seat chamber.  Similarly, in the new 70-seat 2012 Legco, the most pan-democrats can win will be about 28 seats (including two if they are lucky from the new District Council FCs and three from the five new directly-elected seats).

          As for the Democratic Party itself, if past voting behavior is any guide it will lose support in the coming District Council and Legco elections.  But the party has weathered such storms before and moderate conservatives may rally to its side.  More important is the damage to a reputation already tarnished by years of ineffectual temporizing and a seeming inability to think beyond the number of seats Democratic Party candidates can win in the next election.   During the year-long universal suffrage campaign, for example, the party twice fumbled major opportunities and is seen within the democratic camp to have done so for narrow self-serving reasons that disregarded larger principles. 

           First the party miscalculated and assumed the five-district referendum would actually be contested by all as in a regular election.  This would have risked losing not just the one seat the Democratic Party contributed to the campaign, but votes its supporters might give to other more dynamic democratic candidates in other districts and neglect to return in the next election.  The decision was understandable at the time but it was a miscalculation all the same and made the rationale seem even worse in retrospect since the party had also refused to help out with referendum campaigning until a few days before the election.

            Compounding one decision with another, the Democratic Party then failed to acknowledge the community-wide support the referendum campaign had generated for its critique of the reform package.  As a result, party negotiators Albert Ho and Emily Lau failed to represent those community views by building some conditions for future political evolution into their counter-proposal.  The compromise deal was also struck without any recognition of the precedent for indirect election of legislators by District Councilors that is still being set despite the participation of a territory-wide electorate. 

           Nor did the underlying rationale make the compromise deal, without any hint of a roadmap, more acceptable to other democrats.  This is because the compromise will benefit primarily the Democratic Party’s own members, whose lackluster record at the district level is known to all. Other parties are too small to maintain district level organizations and have never really tried to do so.  The Democratic Party’s  wipe-out in the last, 2007, District Councils election should therefore be seen in retrospect as a blessing in disguise.  Without it the party might not have been so insistent on opening up the small District Council constituencies, which have come to exepct the kinds of neighborhood entertainments and amenities that only the DAB can afford to provide.

POTENTIAL GAINS 

          Losses aside, the “District Councils plan” has been diluted even if its provenance was never really acknowledged by anyone.  Only a few commentators noted in passing that such indirect elections are patterned on “the mainland way,” in oblique reference to the People’s Congress system. This is based on direct elections in small constituencies beneath the county level and indirect elections above that allow CCP-domination throughout the system.  

         It was also mentioned in passing by a few officials that they actually did have a roadmap in mind.  The idea, they said, was to replace all the old FCs with new FCs meaning legislators indirectly elected by DAB-dominated District Councilors.  That idea, which was essentially an attempt to finesse an old-fashioned takeover-from-below strategy, has now been nipped in the bud by the compromise solution.   Yet incredibly, some leading moderates including both Democratic Party leaders and academics are still unaware that the mainland system is arranged in this way or that it was the precedent for a future roadmap drawn to the DAB’s specifications.  The Democratic Party’s compromise will allow more time to demand more information about such insiders’ stratagems.

        Finally, there is one larger potential gain that is tied to the one untarnished link the Democratic Party has maintained with its pre-1997 past as standard bearer for Hong Kong’s democracy movement.  Those were the days when young democratic idealists were dreaming big dreams about serving as a model for mainland political reform.  Democratic Party Chairman Albert Ho has remained a committed member of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China that sponsors the annual June Fourth vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.  He also remains an inveterate campaigner for mainland dissidents and their civil liberties.  He and Emily Lau now head the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group that demonstrates regularly in support of imprisoned Chinese lawyers.

        For these reasons, Beijing officials had refused all direct contact with the Democratic Party.  The negotiations that Albert Ho demanded over Hong Kong’s political reform package marked the first break in that frozen relationship since 1989.  He has acknowledged that Beijing officials pressed the party to distance itself from the Tiananmen issue and says he told them it was non-negotiable.  Yet they did not break off the renewed contact.

            What future price the Democratic Party may be asked to pay in return for the thaw remains to be seen.  But the old dream and the possibility of continuing his dissident-support work with the tacit acceptance of mainland authorities must have weighed in the balance of calculations that led Albert Ho to settle for the flawed bargain he struck over Hong Kong’s political reform.  Hopefully the commitment will help to sharpen his negotiating skills for the next big battle to come.  This will be the national/political security legislation, set to make its reappearance probably during the 2012-2016 legislature and as he knows well, that is where the real danger lies.  But pan-democrats also know that Democratic Party members stood on the sidelines in 2003 while activist lawyers, who later formed the Civic Party, took the lead in drafting arguments and spearheading opposition to the goernment’s national security bill.

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         What a difference a decade of political reform can make.  The thought of Hong Kong’s first post-colonial Chief Executive challenging someone to debate his policies would have been dismissed as a joke had anyone suggested it.  Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last British governor (1992-1997), introduced question time in the Legislative Council as part of his better-late-than-never push to update a political culture frozen by 150 years of autocratic colonial rule.   Not everyone appreciated the new custom of course and his post-1997 successor, businessman Tung Chee-hwa (1997-2005), was among them.   Tung could barely muster the courage for his infrequent appearances before the council much less a monthly exchange with political critics.                

            Nor could Tung’s successor, Donald Tsang, disguise his nerves when the newly formed Civic Party decided to put up a challenger in 2007, demanding to participate in what is essentially an appointment procedure.  A specially designed 800-member Election Committee, heavily weighted with conservatives, endorses Beijing’s preferred candidate for Chief Executive under Hong Kong’s post-1997 system.   Although Tsang was a career civil servant, trained in his day to avoid all extemporaneous discourse, he accepted the challenge by lawyer Alan Leong for Hong Kong’s first-ever such debate, in March 2007, before a local television audience of over two million.

         Tsang is still not known for his public speaking skills but the unexpected demand for a debate with Civic Party leader Audrey Eu was an indication of how much Hong Kong has changed.  Eu led her party into the May 16 five-district referendum campaign, which despite being declared a “failure” mobilized half-a-million voters in protest against the government’s latest political reform package. Tsang saw the debate as his last chance to neutralize the public opposition she can now claim to represent (May 17and June 7 posts). 

         The package deals only with the coming 2012 elections.  It proposes to increase the size of the Chief Executive (CE) Election Committee from 800 members to 1,200, and the size of the Legislative Council (Legco) from 60 seats to 70, but without changing the conservative design of either body. The council is currently composed of 30 directly elected legislators and 30 elected by special-interest Functional Constituencies (FCs).  Nor is there any indication as to how the promised goal of full universal suffrage elections for both the CE and Legco is to be achieved by 2017 and 2020, respectively, in accordance with Beijing’s mandated timetable (Nov. 23/09 post).

          Attempts by the moderate Alliance for Universal Suffrage and the Democratic Party to negotiate concessions from Beijing have so far yielded no result.  As of now, all 23 pan-democratic legislators have agreed to veto the proposals if they remain unchanged.  Since all constitutional changes need a “super-majority” of 40 votes in the 60-seat Legislative Council to pass, Tsang’s package seems headed for defeat although Democratic Party leaders are continuing to press for last minute concessions.  The vote is scheduled for June 23.

THE DEBATE

         Following strict rules negotiated beforehand, the June 17 debate was actually little more than a glorified 55-minute question-and-answer session.  The Civic Party wanted a live audience in some non-official setting but had to accept Tsang’s terms or nothing at all:  a conference room at government headquarters, television only, no live audience, no journalists, no English, no simultaneous translation service except for the 30 designated media representatives crowded into side rooms, and no Chinese-character

sub-texting for non-Cantonese speakers.  The stiff format included opening and closing statements, plus a total of 10 questions Tsang and Eu asked each other, and six selected at random from among those submitted in advance by the public.  The Civic Party had also solicited questions from the public for Audrey Eu to ask.

           There were no surprises since both Tsang and Eu stuck to the scripts they have been using throughout. He said even slow progress toward the goal of universal suffrage was better than no progress and blamed democrats for vetoing a similar package in 2005.  She mocked the government’s publicity efforts, one of which likened political reform to a school girl’s dancing dress.  Eu said no progress was better than taking a false step since political reform was a serious matter and once the step was taken there would be no turning back.

         Tsang seemed genuinely oblivious to the contradiction between equal and universal suffrage that democrats want and the small-circle restrictive formulas on offer.  Eu asked whether Beijing’s promise of universal suffrage elections in 2017 and 2020 was not really “written on water.”  He said of course it was not.  Then where is the roadmap to prove it, she asked.  He said he had provided one in the form of his 2012 package and went on to defend indirect elections with arguments he had learned as a colonial official in the 1980s and 1990s when electoral reforms were just beginning.

         In fact, something from all the administrations he has served could be seen in Tsang’s performance and the publicity campaign that preceded it.  But the elements of old-style British colonial, new-style reformist, and official Beijing were put together in a mix that seemed as dysfunctional as his administration has now become.  In particular, mainland-style rhetorical flourishes and sarcastic accusations do not go down well with the general public.  A snap Hong Kong University poll immediately afterward gave the debate hands down to Audrey Eu:  71% to 15% (http://hkupop.hku.hk/).*

QUESTIONS NOT ASKED

            Most fascinating to watch, however, was the art of political shadow-boxing that both participants have mastered, as has everyone here who indulges in public discourse.  Political sensitivity is only one of the reasons for this style of evasion and avoidance, common everywhere but more so here and now.  It follows that the most important points in the debate were those that should have been raised but were not.  

          Controversy has focused on the official proposals for the Legislative Council that leave the existing 28 special-interest Functional Constituencies (FCs) in tact and unreformed while adding five new FC seats to be indirectly elected by 400 District Councilors.  Yet throughout the consultation period that has been ongoing since last November, and throughout this closing debate, no one asked or tried to answer some basic questions:  Where did the “District Councils plan” originate?  Why has it been reintroduced now after being voted down in 2005?  What are the precedents for such a method of indirect election?  Who is promoting it now?  Who stands to benefit? And what does it mean for the ultimate goal of universal suffrage?

           Pan-democrats, including both moderates and radicals, poured all their intellectual energy into critiquing the old special-interest FCs without realizing that the government’s reform plan was actually laying the groundwork for their abolition by replacing them with the new FCs.   In this way, officials and pan-democrats proceeded as they usually do, like ships passing in the night.  The government at least has an excuse since Beijing mandated that the future post-2012 roadmap could not be revealed or discussed at this time.  Yet many hints were dropped along the way that pan-democrats might have picked up on and used to their advantage.  Instead, they too, in effect, accepted Beijing’s rules and worked within the framework laid down.  

          Official rhetoric also made much of the 2017 date for electing the Chief Executive by universal suffrage, a “great prize” it was said that should not be lost by rejecting the government’s proposals.  But that election was almost totally ignored.  Never discussed was the unrepresentative nature of the Election Committee design, which produces an overwhelming majority of conservative members from among Hong Kong’s political and economic establishments.   Since these questions were never addressed, neither were the partisan implications of the official reform package, or its long-term political significance, or institutional antecedents.   The general public has been left to guess, intuit, and fill in the blanks as best it can with a predictable impact on the battle for public opinion. 

PUBLIC RESPONSES

          Officials have continued to cite their own internal opinion polls claiming to show 50-60% support for the government’s reform package.   These polls are conducted under the guidance of the government’s Central Policy Unit think-tank and its director Lau Siu-kai, Chinese University professor emeritus.  Prof. Lau is famous for the conservative bent of his surveys.  These always seem to reflect his tradition-bound assumption about the public’s political apathy and the results have been used by successive administrations to justify conservative policy decisions dating back to the mid-1980s.   Independent polls reflect contradictions that might also be interpreted as apathy, but more likely reflect the nebulous nature of political discourse that derives in part from the official assumptions!

         Back in February  when the government’s official three-month consultation period on the reform package was ending, 70% of those responding to a Hong Kong University poll felt they understood little about the reforms (HKU POP release, Feb. 8:   http://hkupop.hku.hk/ ).    In early June, after countless public discussion meetings, weekend street corner forums, radio talk-shows, rallies, marches, the five-district referendum campaign, and saturation coverage in some newspapers, 65% still felt they knew little about the reforms (HKU POP release, June 14; poll conducted June 8-10).

          Of all the findings, this remains the most encouraging since it suggests that the general public understands that it does not understand and will recognize a convincing argument when it hears one.  The finding also suggests that the official attempt to introduce electoral arrangements the political implications of which are known to only a select few insiders is not going to be as easy as some evidently assumed.

         But for now, the information gap has produced large numbers of uncertain replies and inexplicable contradictory responses.  In the latest (June 8-10) HKU poll, 41% supported the CE reform proposal and 43% opposed, the latter up a full 10 percentage points since mid-April.  Yet 49% felt the proposal should be passed by Legco; 42% said veto and 9% were undecided.

           On the District Councils plan for indirectly electing legislators, opinion was tied at 43% for and against, with 14% either ambivalent or undecided.  Yet 49% felt the proposal should be passed; 41% said veto; 10% couldn’t decide.

           A Baptist University Transition Project poll, conducted between May 6 and 15, asked somewhat different questions and found even more contradictions (www.hktp.org).  Overall, the results were 42% to 41% for and against the package, respectively, with 16% undecided.   But when asked if the government’s plan was acceptable to them personally, 45% said yes, and only 33% said no; 22% were neutral.   On the statement that since the government always holds fake consultations, pan-democrats should reject the plan:  46% agreed, 34% did not, and 20% were neutral.   Yet a great majority (60%) also felt that pan-democrats should compromise to pass reform!

* The final tally from the full HKU poll reported by some papers was 76%:14%.  Another poll conducted by Lingnan University reported 67%:14%.  Ming Pao Daily, June 18, provided the fullest account of the debate.

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           Turnout rates are reported throughout Election Day evenings in Hong Kong, so optimism began to flag even before the polls closed on May 16.  Radical democrats, so-called, had dared to defy Beijing and were now paying the price, mild by comparison with the treatment of dissenters elsewhere in China but a reminder of Hong Kong’s shrinking political space nonetheless.  The immediate cost to participants was not great.  More important was the impact on a democracy movement that has sustained itself for 20 years in an increasingly hostile environment and can still look forward to little chance of success.  This election provided a sudden clear snapshot of the accumulating toll that usually goes unnoticed amid the routine altercations of day-to-day political life.

IMMEDIATE COSTS

           Five pro-democracy legislators had staged their resignation/referendum exercise as a gesture of protest against the pace and scope of political reform decreed by the central government in Beijing.  The idea was that one Legislative Councilor from each of Hong Kong’s five election districts would resign together in order to trigger  territory-wide special elections.  The ex-legislators could then campaign to regain their seats and focus public attention directly on the government’s latest package of lackluster political reform proposals.  Voters could have their say and the government would get the message (May 17 post). 

           Since most of Hong Kong’s democratic parties and activists ultimately decided not to join what initially seemed a risky adventure, its Civic Party and League of Social Democrats (LSD) leaders were dubbed “radicals” while everyone else became by definition “moderate.”  In good radical campaign-style, promoters at first let their hopes soar and began by speculating on the possibility of a 50% turnout rate, which was just within the realm of possibility.  Since 1991 when direct elections for the Legislative Council began, only two regular polls and one special election (in 1998, 2004, and 2007 respectively) registered turnout rates above 50%.   Special circumstances had provoked voters in each case but referendum promoters dared to hope their cause would be similarly rewarded. 

          One tactical mistake was not to have been more forthright in readjusting their own measure of success once friend and foe alike decided to boycott their project.  Not only did the Democratic Party with its nine legislators refuse to participate; it also refused to help with campaigning and canvassing.  The second blow was administered by Beijing.  Once officials declared the de facto referendum a de facto violation of the Basic Law, all pro-Beijing and pro-business candidates also stood down.

          At that point, with no foil for debate and no backup for support, the exercise became little more than a mock election and public information campaign.  Participants carried on as energetically as if it had been the real thing but in continuing to call for a symbolic high turnout, they set themselves up for the letdown that followed.     Somber faces and downcast poses were fitting illustrations beneath banner headlines proclaiming their disappointment with the17% turnout rate.  It was the lowest on record just as pollsters had predicted.  And there was worse to come.

          The most derisive responses naturally came from those who had never supported the exercise.  “Great defeat for the referendum,” gloated the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po.   The central and Hong Kong governments together with the general public had united to “draw a clear line” between moderates and radicals (May 18).  Special scorn was heaped on Audrey Eu, Civic Party leader and spokesperson for the referendum campaign, who was caricatured as its evil genius.  Columnists mocked her mercilessly as a gambler, clown, self-anointed goddess of democracy, and blue-blooded elitist who had led her party into an alliance with wild-eyed LSD radicals (May 18, 21).

           The establishment-oriented South China Morning Post and its columnists echoed similar sentiments. “Blow to pan-democrats,” declared the May 17 morning after headline, and a “misconceived stunt that did nothing for democracy” (May 18).   Commentator Michael Chugani had called it a “great folly” beforehand (May 10) and a load of “bull” afterward (May 19).  Frank Ching lauded the government’s reform package as a “great feat,” dismissed the referendum as farce (May 10), and derided as “weird” pan-democrats opposition to the package (May 24).  Retired colonial official Mike Rowse was scathing in public forums and in print beforehand (Feb. 1).  Afterward, he too targeted Audrey Eu:  “top female politician gambles big and loses spectacularly” (June 1).

DYNAMICS OF DEFEAT

         Verdicts so extravagantly proclaimed are obviously targeting something more significant than a farce and the consequences of this one will take at least until the 2012 Legislative Council election to be registered in full.  But even sympathetic by-standers chided the two parties for not admitting defeat.  Their leading champion had no such reservations, however.  “Admit failure,” declared Apple Daily, “absorb the lessons” (May 19).  These were threefold. 

           First, the election was not really a referendum and many voters did not understand why legislators should resign only to seek re-election.  Such people accepted the government’s line that the exercise was a meaningless waste of public funds.   Second, the pan-democratic camp was not united and the two referendum parties did not do enough to build consensus before announcing their plans.  In the end, others did come out to campaign but their help was half-hearted.   Third, the two parties essentially ran separate campaigns and did not design an effective joint response to the establishment’s coordinated attacks against them.

A Popular Mandate

          Gains were as obvious as failures, however, and the government responded with uncharacteristic speed.  Chief Executive Donald Tsang challenged Audrey Eu to an unprecedented television debate, which she promptly accepted.  The turnout may have been a disappointing 17% but in absolute numbers that amounted to 579,000 voters who defied Beijing, the Hong Kong government, and an avalanche of ridicule to participate in the “meaningless farce.”  Of that number, a higher than usual percentage of blank ballots were cast (19,000), which signified disapproval of the exercise.  But that still left over half-a-million sympathetic voters since the fringe candidates were all democracy advocates.

           Conservative critics wondered why Donald Tsang had bestowed recognition on Audrey Eu in this way when he had denied the legitimacy of her referendum.  But he recognized what they did not.  She was no longer just the spokesperson for a failed election.  Audrey Eu could now claim to have the support of half-a-million voters.  If he could succeed in discrediting her, he would also undermine popular confidence in her cause, or so the government hopes.  The debate is scheduled for June 17.

The Democratic Party’s Dilemma

         Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho protested that it, too, should be represented in the debate but his plea was ignored, adding another to the list of embarrassments for the White Pigeon Party.  Its symbol is a white dove but conveniently for critics and cartoonists, the same Chinese word is used for both birds.  First came Beijing’s post-referendum boast that the voters had stood with the central and Hong Kong governments by drawing a clear line between moderates and radicals.

           Next, when official meetings began on May 24, the Democratic Party’s Chinese host noted pointedly that the contact was a reward for boycotting the referendum (all local papers, May 25).  The party, as leading member of the moderate Alliance for Universal Suffrage, had called for direct dialogue with Beijing to discuss demands and possibilities for compromise.  Preliminary discussions through intermediaries had begun in March and this initiative was widely applauded.  But the post-referendum implications were not, making the path between compromise and capitulation that much more difficult to maneuver.

          Much was made of the May 24 meeting because it was the first between Chinese officials and those now leading the Democratic Party since the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.  Hong Kong’s then democracy movement leaders, Martin Lee and Szeto Wah, founded the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which Beijing still brands as subversive.  Many other core members of this alliance went on to found the Democratic Party in the early 1990s and its current chairman, Albert Ho, remains a core alliance member.   It just hosted well over 100,000 people for its 21^st annual June Fourth candlelight vigil, the record turnout being an unspoken tribute to gravely ill alliance founder, Szeto Wah.

         After his May 24 meeting with Li Gang who is the deputy director of Beijing’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, Albert Ho acknowledged that when contacts began in March Beijing had asked the party to disengage from the 1989 issue.  Ho replied that the matter was non-negotiable (SCMP, May 25).  Beijing, too, is in an awkward place caught between acknowledging what it regards as the Democratic Party’s subversive past and its moderate present.  But choices for the party are more difficult since that past is now one of the few unblemished reminders of its glory days as the standard bearer of Hong Kong’s pre-1997 democracy movement.  Members have already discussed the matter and know they can abandon 1989 only at their electoral peril.

         Meanwhile, Audrey Eu knows that much can be done with the leftovers of a failed election and has rejected feelers to join the Democratic Party’s negotiations.  The reason, she told inquiring reporters, was that the moderates seemed to be looking for excuses to accept the government’s reform package whereas she had campaigned for substantial revisions and half-a-million voters agreed with her.

 Building New Constituencies

          Adding to the Albert Ho’s headaches are the statistical profiles emerging from the referendum his party members refused to join.  The youth vote sent the strongest message.  Young people here as everywhere are not reliable voters.  But the new 1980s-generation anger that erupted suddenly in January continued on through the referendum and inspired the Tertiary 2012 backup slate of candidates fielded by college students.  Young people aged 20-29 account for 14% of Hong Kong’s population but exit polls suggested that 24% of the voters were between 18 and 30 (Apple, May 17).  And of those registered, 26% voted, compared to 19% and 13% for the two over-30 age groups (Xinbao/HK Economic Journal, May 18).  The Democratic Party is obviously showing its age with only 12.6% of its members under 30.  In contrast, the LSD claims that 55% of its membership is under 30 and 42.5% of Civic Party members are under 40 (Ming Pao Daily, Jan. 5, 2010).  

        The LSD’s emphasis on grassroots working class concerns also seems to have paid off.  The two parties together received 29% more votes (or 104,000) in 2010 that in the last, 2008, regular Legislative Council Election.   But most surprising was where those votes came from since working class voters are also not noted for their turnout rates.  Chinese University researcher Ivan Choy compares voter turnout in working class, middle class, and upper income residential areas.  He found the highest increase for the two parties to be among public housing residents.  The trend was apparent everywhere with increases of from 40% to a striking 84% in one district (Ming Pao, May 18, 20).

         The Democratic Party must now worry about how may of those 100,000 votes went to its candidates in 2008 and how many will return in 2012.  Losing votes to other parties in this way was reportedly one of the considerations underlying the decision not to participate in the referendum.  But now, for once, at least two parties succeeded in working across the factional barriers that have hampered the development of Hong Kong’s democracy movement from the start.

         And among those 100,000 votes is one brand new constituency that will have only the referendum candidates to remember.  Thanks to lobbying by pro-democracy activists, Hong Kong’s prisoners have recently won the right to vote and this was their first territory-wide election.  They rewarded the effort on their behalf by turning out in greater numbers than anyone else.  Of the 2,300 prisoners registered to vote, 43.5% availed themselves of the privilege on Election Day (Standard, May 17).