Alan Leong Kah-kit, chair of the Civic Party, speaks following the party’s disbandment in their office in North Point on May 27. Photo: Dickson Lee
Opinion
Mike Rowse
Mike Rowse
Defying Beijing set Hong Kong’s Civic Party on road to political irrelevance
The party had admirable aims, and many of its leaders were good people
Even so, it slipped into the posture of attempting to defy Beijing, and the inability to live with the reality of Chinese sovereignty meant its time was up
I must admit I felt a twinge of regret when I read the news that the Civic Party had folded. Chairman and co-founder Alan Leong Kah-kit made the announcement after the remaining members voted almost unanimously at an extraordinary general meeting to start winding up proceedings as no one was prepared to hold office in the 17-year-old organisation.
I immediately recalled the party’s invitation to me to participate in a debate on the motion “The Civic Party is history” held some years ago. I was to propose the motion, Leong would oppose it, and the audience comprised mostly of members would vote on the merits of the arguments presented. The moderator was a prominent local journalist.
I was happy to accept the invitation for a number of reasons: I knew many of the party leaders personally and I particularly liked that they were prepared to open themselves up to outside criticism; the party’s working language was English, which would remove any awkwardness over communication; and it would be a pleasure and a challenge to pit my skills against well-educated professionals, many of whom were senior members of the bar and argued complex legal cases for a living.
To say I lost overwhelmingly would be something of an understatement. As I recall, I got a single vote from one of the few non-members present.
The Civic Party at that time was a member of the rainbow-coloured coalition of what might loosely be described as pro-democracy parties. There was something for everyone: Labour for the working people, the Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood for the less well-off, the original Democratic Party for the politically conscious, the League of Social Democrats for the more militant and various splinter groups, each headed by a charismatic figure.
I saw the Civic Party as somewhere in the middle, a bit highbrow with an academic and legal bias, but something of a moderating force. I envisaged it would appeal mainly to middle-of-the-road, middle-class people like its members with a leaning towards democracy but not keen on anything too radical.
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Hong Kong Civic Party disbands after championing opposition causes for 17 years
Hong Kong Civic Party disbands after championing opposition causes for 17 years
My assessment was wrong. One immediate warning sign was an attack by a leading party member on the privileges of private sports and social clubs, the implication being that such things were a relic of the colonial era and it was time the facilities were brought into public hands. This seemed to me a total misreading of the situation. It is true that when many of these clubs were first formed their membership was predominantly expatriates and their operations were quite exclusive.
However, developments in recent decades have changed the circumstances. Many of the clubs in question have a substantial number of local members and they are required to grant the use of their facilities to non-members for a certain number of hours. Account should also be taken of the substantial fees members pay to the clubs.
The focus of a moderate party should surely have been to make sure similar facilities were available for use by the less well-off. In other words, it should support levelling up instead of hacking down. As for the membership of the private clubs, it seemed to me that both locals and expats should have been people the Civic Party would want to count among its supporters. Where was the logic in attacking institutions which many of their prospective members and voters had paid for and enjoyed?
On the political front, the party joined hands with the League of Social Democrats in 2009 to organise the “five districts referendum”. The idea was that one legislator from each of Hong Kong’s five geographical constituencies would resign their seat and then stand for re-election. According to their plan, the resulting by-elections would constitute a de facto referendum on the pace of democratisation desired by local people.
The resignations went ahead in January 2010 and the by-elections were held in May. All five members of the pan-democratic camp were duly re-elected, but turnout for the by-election was just 17 per cent whereas the original hope of the organisers had been at least 50 per cent.
Around the same time the party opposed the reform package, its rival, the Democratic Party, negotiated with the city administration. That package provided for the five additional “functional constituency” seats to be elected on a quasi-democratic basis.
People walk past posters for the Legislative Council by-election in Wan Chai on May 15, 2010. Photo: David Wong
In 2019, Civic Party members went to the US to discuss democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong. I must confess this practice has always puzzled me. The capital city we should be focused on is the one in China. The dialogue we must improve is with Beijing. Washington and London are nice places to visit, but they have no part to play in Hong Kong’s political development.
Party members also took a role in the procedural tussle that delayed enactment of the law dealing with the national anthem for many months. One does not need to be a political genius to work out how that would have been interpreted by central government leaders.
All this said, I will miss the Civic Party. It had admirable aims, and many of its leaders were good people on an individual basis. Even so, it slipped into the posture of attempting to defy Beijing, which is a road to political irrelevance. The inability to live with the reality of Chinese sovereignty meant its time was up.
