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Chapter 8 Political Parties and ElectionsChapter Author(s): Ma Ngok

Book Title: Contemporary Hong Kong Government and PoliticsBook Subtitle: Expanded Second EditionEdition: 2

Book Editor(s): Lam Wai-man, Percy Luen-tim Lui, Wilson WongPublished by: Hong Kong University Press, (July 2012)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1xwd71.

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Chapter 8Political Parties and Elections

Ma Ngok

When the Constitutional Development Task Force of the Hong KongSpecial Administrative Region (HKSAR) government submitted its ThirdReport to the Central Peoples Government (CPG) in 2004, the under-development of political parties was cited as an unfavourable condition forimplementing full democracy in Hong Kong. The political parties in HongKong have a short history and are remarkably weak. While parties enjoyed

phenomenal growth in 199197, its development was stagnant after 1997.Why is that?Hong Kongs electoral experience was also special, albeit short, with

unique electoral methods that are not adopted elsewhere. We will examinethe major features of these electoral methods, and explore why thesemethods have changed a lot over the years, and how the elections haveshaped party development in Hong Kong.

Under the inuence of the electoral system, Hong Kong has a multi-party system which brings about a fragmented legislature. Working within

an executive-dominant system which gives the legislature relatively littlepower, this system brings low popular support for political parties in HongKong. Party development is an important task for Hong Kongs futureprogress towards full democracy.

The development of party politics in Hong Kong

The development of political parties in Hong Kong was a response togradual democratization in Hong Kong since the 1980s in general, and to

the introduction of direct election into the Legislative Council (LegCo)in 1991 in particular. The student movements and pressure group move-ments in the 1970s were the harbingers of the democracy movement inHong Kong. The Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kongs future in198284 politicized the Hong Kong population, and political groups wereformed to comment on political issues and participate in the District Boardand Urban Council (UC)/Regional Council (RC) elections. The leading


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160 Ma Ngok

political groups at the time included the Meeting Point (MP) (founded in1983), the Hong Kong Affairs Society (HKAS) (1984), the Progressive HongKong Society (1984), the Hong Kong Forum (1984), and the Associationof Democracy and Peoples Livelihood (ADPL) (1986). These groups wereembryonic forms of political parties in Hong Kong, but had very limitedresources and did not have elaborate organization at that stage.

Several events in the 1980s brought better cooperation to the pro-democ-racy groups. Many groups joined the movements against the building ofthe Daya Bay Nuclear Plant in 1986 and against the amendment of thePublic Order (Amendment) Ordinance in 1987, which provided chancesof cooperation for these liberal social groups. The Joint Committee for thePromotion of Democratic Government (JCPDG), the umbrella organiza-tion of social and political groups which led the democracy movement inthe late 80s, further brought the democrats together. An important catalystfor party formation was the Beijing democracy movement in 1989. Inthat spring, one million Hong Kong people took to the streets to supportthe Beijing democracy movement, and more than 100 groups formedthe Alliance for the Support of the Patriotic and Democratic Movement

(ASPDMC). The ASPDMC actively provided monetary and materialsupport to the Mainland movement, and smuggled dissidents out of Chinaafter the crackdown. With the Beijing authorities denouncing the ASPDMCleaders as subversives after the crackdown, the democrats felt the needto strengthen themselves by better cohesion. In April 1990, members ofthe three major pro-democracy groups, the HKAS, the ADPL, and the MP,and other pro-democracy leaders, formed the United Democrats of HongKong (UDHK), the rst political party in Hong Kong. The major leadersof the UDHK included Martin Lee, Yeung Sum, Szeto Wah, and Albert Ho.

Months later, business conservatives and district-level conservatives formedthe Liberal Democratic Foundation (LDF) as the major counterweight tothe UDHK.

Political parties in Hong Kong entered a growth stage in 199197.Firstly, the landslide victory of the UDHK in the 1991 LegCo electionshowed the edge of an organized political party in campaigning, and thatHong Kong people were not that afraid of parties after all. Secondly, asLegCo-appointed seats would be abolished in 1995, the appointed LegComembers who wanted to continue their political career after 1995 had to

run for elections, direct or functional, and organizing parties was the logicaloutcome. Thirdly, the political debate over the Patten reform proposal in199294 polarized the Hong Kong political scene. With immense politi-cal pressure from Beijing, politicians were forced to choose between twopositions: support Pattens reform and be seen as pro-democracy but anti-China, or oppose Pattens reform and be seen as non-democrat and pro-China. This more or less drove more politicians to join political parties asthere was little middle ground between the two positions.


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Political Parties and Elections 161

As a result, there was a mushrooming of parties in 199197. In 1992,some appointed members and pro-business members in the LegCo formedthe Cooperative Resource Center (CRC). Led by Allen Lee, James Tien,and Selina Chow, the CRC was re-organized to become the Liberal Party(LP) in 1994. In 1992, pro-China politicians and leaders from the HongKong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU) formed the DemocraticAlliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB). Jasper Tsang Yok-shingserved as DAB chairman from 1992 to 2003, after which Ma Lik took overas chairman. In 1996, a group of pro-China business conservatives formedthe Hong Kong Progressive Alliance (HKPA), which quickly absorbed theLDF in 1997, and merged with the DAB in 2005. Within the pro-democracycamp, the MP and the UDHK merged in 1994 to form the DemocraticParty (DP), which since then was the largest pro-democracy party. In 1996,some prominent democrats including Emily Lau, Lau Chin-shek, and LeeCheuk-yan formed the political group The Frontier (TF). A group of pro-Taiwan politicians formed the 123 Democratic Alliance in 1994, which wasdissolved in 2001 for lack of funds. Christine Loh formed the CitizensParty in 1997, but the party turned inactive after Loh declined to run for

LegCo of

ce in 2000, and it ceased operation in 2008.

Party politics in the HKSAR

Obstacles to party development in Hong Kong

The development of party politics in Hong Kong after 1997 is hindered by anumber of factors. The Chief Executive Election Ordinance stipulates thatthe elected chief executive (CE) has to quit his party if he has belonged to

a political party, making it impossible to have a ruling party in Hong Kong.Party politicians were also seldom appointed to major executive positions.With most of the executive positions not open for electoral contestation,but mostly determined by appointment, it is difcult for political parties tocompete for power positions. Party politicians can only run for the ofceof the Legislative Councillor, which is relatively powerless in the executive-dominant system of Hong Kong. It takes away a major incentive of formingand joining political parties, namely to seize political power, and makes itdifcult to attract talents to join political parties.

The institutional setup and changes after 1997 did not help party devel-opment. The Election Committee (EC) and functional constituency (FC)system (see below), as methods of election, is inimical to party politics.With very narrow franchises, candidates for EC and FC seats usually do notneed party support for mobilizing voters. Sometimes party afliation canbe a liability for FC candidates, especially if the party platform runs counterto sectoral interests. In the post-1997 LegCo, we usually see that about


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162 Ma Ngok

half of the FC legislators are independents. FC members need to defendsectoral interests to survive, which does not favour political compromisebetween and within political parties, and hurts party discipline and partyconsolidation.

The abolition of the UC and RC was a blow to the political recruit-ment and succession of the two major parties in Hong Kong. Before 1999,members of these two nancially autonomous elected bodies, which wereresponsible for managing cultural and recreational affairs and environ-mental and food hygiene, received handsome salaries that enabled thesemembers to serve as full-time politicians. By 1998, the DP had 24 UC/RCmembers, while the DAB had 15, representing the cream of the partiesnext generation of political leaders. The abolition of the UC/RC took awayan important training ground for party politicians, bringing successionproblems to both the DP and the DAB.

By 2010, political parties in Hong Kong were still plagued by meagreresources, low level of participation from the public, and a paucity of policyinuence. The business sector, seeing that the political parties have limitedinuence, is loath to donate large funds to court the political parties. This

creates a vicious circle, where the non-open nature of the system meanslittle inuence for the parties, leading to inadequate support from thebusiness and the public, which will in turn further weaken the politicalparties capacity to inuence public policy.

Party politics after 1997

After 1997, the inuence and credibility of the political parties weremore or less weakened, if compared to the 199597 period. In 199597,

it was common for LegCo members to force government policy changesby private members bills, amending government legislation and vetoinggovernment bills and appropriations. However, the constitutional con-straints in the Basic Law imposed on private members bills (Article 74),and the voting-by-group rule (Annex II), made it difcult for legislatorsto put forward alternative policies after 1997. Moreover, pro-governmentmembers took up a majority in the post-1997 LegCo, who were loath toput too much pressure on government. As a result, the policy inuence ofthe LegCo and the political parties was much reduced after 1997, with the

LegCo reduced to an oversight role.Both the pro-democracy camp and the pro-government camp havewitnessed an increase of political parties/groups in recent years, bringingabout more fragmentation in the legislature, which in turn weakened thepolicy inuence of the political parties. Before 1997, the DP was dominantin the pro-democracy camp. Factionalism within the party since 1998 led tomany of the Young Turks faction leaving DP, which weakened the party


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as well as tarnished its moral image (Box 8.1). Political scandals involvingparty leaders and members after 2000 began to cast a darker image on theDP who used to occupy a moral high ground.

Under the proportional representation (PR) system (Box 8.2), wherethe voters often are offered more than one choice of pro-democracy candi-dates, DP began to see part of their votes lured away by other democrats. In2006, the Civic Party (CP) was formed, led by leading barristers and otherprofessionals and academics, which was a new option for middle-class andmoderate voters. In the same year, the League of Social Democrats (LSD)was formed, composed of former Young Turks and other rm opposition-ists including Leung Kwok-hung (the Long Hair) and Raymond Wong.This party adopts a rmer anti-government and pro-grassroots position. In2008, the DP merged with the TF, which gave it a temporary boost. Thepro-democracy parties, however, were deeply split over the 200910 debateon constitutional reform, creating a lot of animosities among themselves.

In the pro-government camp, while the DAB remained the strongestparty, with its political prowess ever increasing, there were other politicalgroups which began to expand their inuence. Since 2004, the HKFTU

decided to

eld their own candidates in the LegCo direct elections, whichchipped away some of DABs votes. Other pro-government independentssuch as Regina Ip and Priscilla Leung also attracted moderate-conservativevoters. In 2010, Regina Ip and Michael Tien initiated the New PeoplesParty that aimed at middle-to-upper-class conservative and moderatevoters. On the other hand, the LP suffered a major split after its 2008election debacle, with several LegCo members leaving the party to formthe Economic Synergy, reducing the LP to three legislators after 2008. InAugust 2011, the LP, the Economic Synergy, and other pro-government,

pro-business members formed a new alliance of 12 LegCo members, whichinstantly became the largest political bloc in the LegCo.Table 8.1 shows the distribution of party seats in Hong Kong since 1995.

By 2008, the biggest party took up only ten seats, and the three strongestparties combined for less than half of the LegCo seats. About one-third ofthe seats went to independents. As the parties were unable to engineer alegislative majority to force the government into policy changes, the HongKong public became increasingly frustrated with the partisan struggleswithin the fragmented LegCo. This naturally led to great disillusionment

about party politics. Political parties as an institution have suffered fromdeclining public legitimacy after 1997. In a poll in 2003, only 29.8% ofinterviewees expressed condence in political parties, compared to 71.4%for the courts, 46.4% for the civil service, 45.8% for the legislature, and41.8% for the executive (www.ln.edu.hk/pgp/pdf/RP03C1(3).pdf). By2010, about 60% of survey respondents could not or would not identifya party that they supported (www.cuhk.edu.hk/hkiaps/press/press.html).


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164 Ma Ngok

Changes after 1997 saw a gradual increase of voter support for theconservative, pro-China parties. With the CPG having better popularityin Hong Kong after 1997, the pro-China label became less damaging for

the pro-China parties. Its richer resources and vast district-level networks,assisted by pro-China community organizations, put them in an advanta-geous position during elections. Over the years, the DAB has succeededin serving as an ideological counterpost to the democrats, in purportinga rationale in political conservatism. In contrast, the politically conserva-tive business sector had made little headway after 1997. While the LPsformer chairperson James Tien and vice chair Selina Chow both won in the2004 geographical constituencies (GCs), they both lost their seats in 2008.The election setback immediately led to a split of the LP which severely

weakened its ability to represent the business sector.

Differences in positions

Political parties in Hong Kong can be roughly divided into two camps:pro-democracy and pro-China. Parties (or political groups) in the pro-democracy camp include the DP, the ADPL, the CP, and the LSD. The

Table 8.1 Distribution of LegCo seats among political groupings, 1995present

199597 19982000

200004 200408 2008

DP 19 13 12 9 8/9*

DAB 6 9 9 12 10

LP 10 10 8 10 3

CP 6 5

LSD 3

Other pro-democracygroups 9 5 6 4 3

Other pro-Chinagroups

4 7 7 3 8

Independents 12 16 18 16 19/20

Total 60 60 60 60 60

* Immediately after the 2008 election, the DP had eight seats, which thenincreased to nine seats after Emily Lau joined the DP as a result of the mergeof the DP and the TF. The number of seats of the DP was reduced to eight seats

again after Andrew Cheng quit the party in 2010 to vote against the governmentconstitutional reform proposal. Andrew Cheng is then treated as an independ-ent in the above table.


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pro-democracy camp adopts a more progressive attitude towards democ-ratization in Hong Kong. They advocate election of the CE and the wholeLegCo by universal suffrage as soon as possible, oppose FCs and theappointment system in the District Councils. They also put more emphasison values such as human rights, freedom, rule of law, and stress a higherlevel of autonomy of Hong Kong from the CPG. After 1997, they have gen-erally adopted a more critical attitude against the HKSAR government.

In contrast, the pro-China camp usually adopts a more conservativeattitude towards democratization. They consider stability and prosperityparamount, stressing the need to seek consensus before a rapid transitionto full democracy. The pro-China parties usually relish a better relationshipwith the CPG and the HKSAR government. Major parties within the pro-China camp include the DAB, the LP, and the HKPA (which merged withthe DAB in 2005).

Events such as the debate on Article 23 legislation in 200203 and theinterpretation of the Basic Law by the Standing Committee of NationalPeoples Congress (SCNPC) in 1999 on the right of abode issue can illus-trate the ideological difference between the two camps. Parties and poli-

ticians in the pro-democracy camp thought that the suggested contentsof Article 23 legislation would hurt the civil liberties of Hong Kong, andopposed its enactment. In contrast, the pro-China camp thought that it wasa constitutional and patriotic duty to enact the related laws, and stressedthe importance of national security over personal freedoms. When theSCNPC interpreted the Basic Law in 1999 to overturn the Court of FinalAppeal verdict, ruling that children of Hong Kong citizens born in theMainland had to get approval in the Mainland before they could come toHong Kong, the pro-democracy camp saw it as a violation to the rule of law

and the one country, two systems and opposed the decision. The pro-China camp mostly welcomed the SCNPC decision as necessary to stem thetide of incoming Mainland immigrants to protect the economic prosperityof Hong Kong.

Parties in Hong Kong also adopt different positions on labour/welfareissues. Pro-business parties such as the LP and the HKPA are more inclinedto business interests. The corollary is that they usually oppose increase ofsocial welfare, prefer low tax, and are less sympathetic to increasing labourbenets such as the minimum wage legislation. The DP and the DAB are

catch-all parties who claim that they will take care of interests of all classes(Box 8.3). Compared to labour union groups such as the HKFTU or theHong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) led by Lee Cheuk-yan, or pro-grassroots parties such as the ADPL and the LSD, they are moremiddle-class-oriented, stressing a balance between the interests of differ-ent classes. A case in point will be the parties different positions on civilservice reforms in around 200002. HKCTU and HKFTU usually oppose


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166 Ma Ngok

privatization and civil service streamlining as it threatens job security ofcivil servants, while the LP welcomed the reforms as a means to reducegovernment expenditure. DP and DAB tried to straddle the middle path;they agree to the general direction of civil service reform but insist that thegovernment must put in enough packages to protect the civil servants.

The parties in the LegCo usually show better cooperation on economicor livelihood issues, but democratization remains the major dividing linebetween parties. In 200002, various political groupings in the LegCoformed the Eight Party Coalition which managed to put pressure onthe government to adopt measures to alleviate social pains brought by therecession. The alliance however was short-lived, as after the AccountabilitySystem for Principal Ofcials (ASPO) was set up in 2002, the allianceceased to function. On political issues such as the Article 23 legislationand democratization, the pro-democracy camp and the pro-China campinvariably confronted each other. In 2009, the CP and the LSDs proposalof the de facto referendum initiative created a rift even within the pro-democracy camp. In 2010, the DPs compromise deal with the governmentover the 2012 reform package led to criticisms from some pro-democracy

groups. The pro-government/anti-government divide and democratiza-tion/anti-democratization divide would continue to dene the majorpolitical difference between parties in Hong Kong, although both campswould see more internal struggles in the future.

Elections in Hong Kong: The electoral system

The HKSAR LegCo adopts a mixed system of election. From 1998 to 2004,the 60 LegCo members were elected by three different methods: GC, FC,

and EC, with the number of GC seats gradually increasing. The GC seatsare elected by the PR formula, using the Largest Remainder method with aHare quota (Box 8.4). Hong Kong is divided into ve constituencies, witheach constituency electing three to eight legislators in the elections of 1998,2000, and 2004. The EC seats were abolished in 2004, with the GC takingup 30 seats. In principle, the PR system allocates seats to parties/candidatesroughly according to the vote shares they obtain in the election. The PRsystem guarantees that the smaller parties will get represented in roughaccordance to their small vote share. The Largest Remainder method and

the Hare quota are commonly regarded as system parameters that are lessfavourable to large parties.The FC system has been instituted since 1985. It was meant to guaran-

tee representation to business and professional leaders, who used to beappointed into the LegCo by the colonial government, by a method ofelection. By 2004, the 30 FC seats represented the major business groups,the major professional sectors, and selected social sectors and local political


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institutions such as labour unions, the Heung Yee Kuk, and the DistrictCouncils. Since its inception, the FC system has been much criticized asgiving undue political privileges to the business and professional sectors.While average citizens can cast only one vote in the GC, business owners andprofessionals have more than one vote, with the weight of their vote muchgreater than GC voters, thus violating the principle of equality of votingrights. By 2008, the 30 FC seats represented only about 230,000 electors,compared to 3.2 million voters in the direct election. Most business seatsare elected by only several hundred to several thousand electors, most ofthem corporations, which gives rise to criticisms of the FC as small-circleelections. Critics claim that the small number of electors makes the FCliable to manipulation and corruption. There are also few objective criteriato judge which sector or occupation should be represented, which createsendless political debates between interest groups and social sectors.

The 800-member EC elected ten legislators in 1998, six legislators in2000 and also the CE in 2002. Two hundred members of the EC came fromthe business sector, 200 from professional sectors, 200 from various social,religious and labour groups, and 200 from representatives of various politi-cal institutions. These EC representatives were in turn elected by corpora-tions, groups, and individuals in their own sectors in FC-like manner. Onthe whole, the voter population represented by the 800 EC members wasno more than the 230,000 electors represented by the FCs. As a result, thismethod of election shared the criticisms of the FC, as being small-circleelections and biased in favour of business and professional interests. The800 EC members were given a block vote when they elected the legisla-tors, meaning that they could cast the exact number of votes as the numberof legislators elected. This in effect allows a power bloc that controls amajority of EC members to dictate the list of candidates to be elected,which enables the pro-China camp to dominate the EC seats in the 1998and 2000 elections (see below).

Table 8.2 Composition of the HKSAR LegCo, 19982012

GC FC EC Total

19982000 20 30 10 60

200004 24 30 6 60

200408 30 30 0 60

200812 30 30 0 60

201216 35 35 0 70


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Elections after 1997

The general picture

There have been four LegCo elections after 1997: in 1998, 2000, 2004,and 2008. In general, in the post-1997 elections the China factor hasbecome less important than in the pre-1997 elections. In the 1991 LegCoelection, candidates attitude towards the Tiananmen crackdown and theChinese government was the deciding factor. Democrats who supported

the 1989 Beijing democracy movement and who had a strong track recordin the Hong Kong democracy movement received overwhelming support.Political debates during the 1995 election centred around the attitude tothe Chinese government. The DAB and the pro-China camp urged votersto vote for candidates who could have a dialogue with the Chinese govern-ment, claiming that this would facilitate the political transition. In contrast,the democrats hailed their resolve in standing up to defend Hong Kongsinterests should China intervene into Hong Kongs affairs. After 1997, theabsence of ostensible intervention from the CPG after 1997 means that

the attitude to China was less relevant in the peoples mind when choosinglegislators. With the HKSAR government responsible for reecting HongKongs views to the CPG, it was also difcult for pro-China politicians toclaim that they were the only bridge between the CPG and the Hong Kongpeople.

The fading of the China factor was accompanied by the rise in salienceof economic issues after 1997. With the economic downturn after the Asiannancial crisis, Hong Kong people turned more attention to bread-and-butter issues. However, judging from the platforms of the different parties

in the elections after 1997, there was little difference between their plat-forms in socio-economic policies. As the LegCo elections will not bringabout a change in government, parties can strive for the most populistpolicy positions without really delivering their policies in government. Asa result, while debates on economic issues and solutions to the economicplight took up more time in election forums after 1997, the political differ-ences between the parties, in terms of attitude towards the HKSAR govern-ment and democratization, remained the major dividing line between thecandidates.

Out of political loyalty, the pro-China politicians would adopt a pro-gov-ernment position, and would invariably be branded as Royalists by theirpolitical rivals during the elections. The democrats generally adopted amore anti-government position, and claimed that the pro-government poli-ticians failed to supervise the government and were to blame for post-1997governing ills. They posited that electing more democrats into the legis-lature would mean better supervision on the HKSAR government, which


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would bring better governance. After 2007, with the public concernedabout government-business collusion and increasing economic inequality,the democrats usually attributed the economic ills to the dominance ofthe business sector, lack of true democracy, and the dominance of the FCs.In contrast, the DAB usually claimed they were a stabilizing force in HongKong, criticizing the democrats as opposing the HKSAR government at allcosts. They said they could engage in a rational dialogue with the HKSARgovernment, which would make the latter more receptive to their construc-tive suggestions on government policies, whereas the democrats wouldoppose everything in an irrational manner and were not constructive at all.

The effect of the proportional representation system

The change of the direct election formula to a PR system after 1997 hadseveral effects. Firstly, the electoral competition became more pluralized,bringing about more political parties in both camps. As PR generallyincreases the chance of representation for the smaller parties, it attractedmore candidates to participate in the post-1997 elections. In 1995, when

the single-member plurality system was used, 11 of the 20 districts saw aone-on-one face-off between a democrat and a pro-China candidate. In thefour post-1997 elections that used PR, each constituency had at times upto 14 to 15 candidate lists, bringing about a more pluralized competition.In particular, usually each district showed a competition between severalpro-democracy lists, leading to much more internal competition within thepro-democracy camp.

The PR system also led to changes in campaign strategies. First of all,because of larger constituency size and a higher campaign expense ceiling,

candidates could use more capital-intensive means of campaigning.Large billboards in the city centre, advertisements on public transporta-tion vehicles and stations, and newspaper advertisements were becomingcommon means of campaigning. Parties and candidates would then devoteless resources to traditional labour-intensive means of campaigning suchas door-to-door canvassing, pamphlets, and interpersonal contact, and paymore attention to attracting media coverage and media image packaging.

PR also led to novel campaign strategies. As the Largest Remainderformula and the Hare quota make it difcult for the large parties to win

the last seat under PR, the large parties began to split into more than onelist in the same constituency, to increase their chances of winning thelast seat. The DP rst experimented with the idea in the 2000 election,with mixed results. In New Territories East, the DP elded two lists, ledby Andrew Cheng and Wong Sing-chi respectively, which managed towin two seats in the ve-seat constituency by a combined vote share of24.4%. However, the three split lists in New Territories West the same year


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170 Ma Ngok

could win only two seats, with senior incumbent Lee Wing-tat unexpect-edly losing his seat. The 2004 election saw a more complicated picture ofstrategic coordination within both camps. The DAB split into two lists inthe Kowloon East district. The pro-democracy camp underwent a lengthyprocess of coordination, again with mixed results. In some constituencies,the pro-democracy parties could not agree on a formula of coordination.In New Territories East the pro-democracy camp managed to put most ofthe pro-democracy candidates into one list, but the result was unsatisfac-tory. In Hong Kong Island, the democrats vote division strategy failedand won only three out of the six seats with 58% of the vote, which was seenas a strategic failure. In 2008, the democrats had relatively little strategiccoordination among themselves, but they got reasonable results, with thehelp of strategic voting by the voters.

Strategic voting was another new phenomenon under PR. Strategicvoting means voters choose a less preferred candidate instead of themost preferred one because they think the former has a better chance ofwinning, or they believe the latter has more than enough votes to win. Inthe post-1997 campaigns, due to the change of the electoral system, candi-

dates would try to convince voters that certain candidates in the same camphad more than enough votes to win, and urged voters to vote for thosecandidates, claiming they were in danger of losing.

Some of these strategies backred. For example, in 2000 in the lastweeks of the campaign, Albert Chan of the DP, who had been trailing inthe polls, was trying to convince voters who supported other leading pro-democracy lists to strategically switch their votes to him. As a result, fellowDP incumbent Lee Wing-tat, who was leading in the pre-election polls,unexpectedly lost because too many of his supporters believed that he had

more than enough votes and voted for Albert Chan. Similarly, in the 2004election many voters on Hong Kong Island believed that the lists of AudreyEu and Cyd Ho were safe to win two seats. A lot of voters switched to votefor the DPs list at the eleventh hour, believing that Martin Lee, second onthe DP list, was in danger of losing. Cyd Ho lost as a result, with the DPs listwinning more than enough votes to secure two seats.

In 2008, a certain proportion of voters distributed their votes strategi-cally among different pro-democracy lists, which in the end brought verygood results for the pro-democracy camp with this spontaneous strategic

coordination. The democrats got 19 out of the 30 seats (63%), with about57% of the votes. The PR system in Hong Kong has brought about strate-gic coordination at both the candidate and voter levels, a non-negligiblephenomenon which would affect the campaign and the election outcomes.


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Results in FCs and ECs

Pro-China politicians dominated the EC seats in both 1998 and 2000. Thepro-China conservatives dominated the business subsectors (one-fourthof the EC) and other subsectors: the Heung Yee Kuk (21 members outof the 800), Hong Kongs National Peoples Congress and the ChinesePeoples Consultative Committee delegates (77 members in total), Labour(40 members), Sports, Performing Acts and Cultural (40 members), theAgriculture and Fisheries (40 seats). The voting method of block vote,

which allowed each EC voter to cast their vote for ten candidates in 1998and six in 2000, allowed a power bloc that controlled more than half of theEC votes to take all the EC seats. As a result, the major pro-China parties,the LP, the HKPA, and the DAB, with each of them controlling more than100 votes in the 2000 EC, engaged in horse-trading agreements and votedfor a same list of candidates in the 2000 election. As a result, the pro-Chinacamp swept all the EC seats in both 1998 and 2000 LegCo elections. Thedemocrats could enjoy the support of about 100 EC members, usually fromvarious professional subsectors, but these votes proved inconsequential in

affecting the EC results.The results in the FC elections were more mixed. About one-third ofthe FC seats would usually be uncontested. These usually belonged to thebusiness sectors that adopted corporate voting, where the endorsement ofthe related chambers of commerce or business associations determinedthe winner, discouraging possible challengers. The democrats could onlycompete in the professional sectors which have a wider voter base and voteon an individual basis. In the 2004 election, the democrats succeeded incapturing two new seats in the medical and accountancy sectors, bringing

them control over seven seats in the nine professional sectors. In 2008,however, the democrats suffered a setback and were reduced to only fourFC seats. About half of the FC members usually did not have party aflia-tions, as the party label has limited effects in these elections of narrow fran-chise. This also added to the fragmentation of the LegCo. The incumbentsenjoyed an overwhelming advantage in FC elections, with incumbentswinning over 85% of the contests.

How the parties fared

An analysis of the vote shares of the two political camps in direct electionshowed that the pro-democracy camp obtained a stable share of about 60%of the popular votes since 1991, with the conservatives or pro-China campgetting about 30% (Figure 8.1). The DPs share in the pro-democracy campdeclined over time, with its vote share dropping from 43% in 1998, to 35%in 2000, an estimated 25% in 2004, and 21% in 2008.


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172 Ma Ngok

The 1998 election saw an unexpectedly high turnout rate of 53%. Witha lot of voters sympathizing with the democrats who had refused to run forthe Provisional LegCo in 1997, the democrats obtained 64% of the votesin 1998 and won 14 of the 20 directly elected seats. The DAB got 25% ofthe vote and duly got ve seats out of 20. The DP took up a large portionof the votes and seats in the pro-democracy camp, obtaining 42.2% of the

total vote and nine seats. Winning only

ve seats in the FCs, the democratscould only take up about one-third of the seats in the 19982000 LegCo,with pro-government members controlling a safe majority.

The democrats, and the DP in particular, suffered a setback in the 2000election. Public disillusionment of the inability of the LegCo and thepolitical parties to effect changes to government policy and their livelihoodled to a marked drop in the voter turnout by about 10%. The increasein salience of the economic issues also weakened the political appeal ofthe democrats, who had been running on a mostly political agenda since

the 1990s. Although plagued by a scandal involving its vice chairman GaryCheng, the DAB showed remarkable mobilization strength and managed tokeep its own hard core of supporters. Because of the drop in voter turnout,the DAB actually increased its vote share from 25% to 30%, by turningout almost the identical number of votes as in 1998. The democrats lostabout 200,000 votes, with the DP alone responsible for 170,000 of the drop.The vote share of the democrats dropped from 64% to 57%. The balance

64.68%61.48%

64.43%

57.16% 60.63%

57.50%

25.27%

35.23%31.00%

34.42%

37.30% 40.30%

10.03%

3.28% 4.57%

8.42%

2.08% 2.20%

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

1991 1995 1998 2000 2004 2008

Pro-democracy Other Pro-China

Figure 8.1 Vote shares of different camps, 19912008


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of power in the 200004 LegCo remained more or less similar to that of19982000.

The 2004 LegCo election was commonly hailed as a referendum ondemocracy for Hong Kong. The debate on Article 23 legislation, and theJuly 1 march in 2003, put the issue of democratic reform rmly on thepolitical agenda of Hong Kong. The democrats pushed for election by uni-versal suffrage of the CE in 2007, and of the whole LegCo in 2008. TheCPG refuted these demands by handing down a verdict on 26 April 2004 bythe SCNPC, ruling that there will be no election by universal suffrage of theCE in 2007, and the proportion of FC and GC seats in 2008 would remainunchanged (i.e., each at 50%). The verdict certainly took the wind out ofthe democrats sails, who had planned to use the issue of universal suffrageas the campaign issue of the 2004 election. After the verdict, the democratsinsisted to ght for universal suffrage in 200708. They claimed that if theywon a majority or close to a majority in the 2004 election, it would increasetheir bargaining power vis--vis the CPG in pushing for universal suffrage.In contrast, the pro-China camp deemed it unrealistic to insist on universalsuffrage in 200708, and some of them claimed they supported universal

suffrage in 2012. The pro-democracy camp agreed on a common campaignplatform of universal suffrage for 200708, which became a label by whichvoters could distinguish who belonged to the pro-democracy camp in the2004 election. Other social and economic issues more or less took a backseat during the 2004 campaign.

The election result was a disappointment for the democrats. Althoughthey slightly increased their overall vote share to 60.6% and gained threeextra seats to 25 seats, they fell short of winning a majority. The DABmanaged a 25% vote share and gained two extra seats through narrow

winning margins. Conservatives such as James Tien and Selina Chow of theLP, and Rita Fan, who ran for the rst time in direct elections, got reason-able support and each won a seat. The DP lost two seats and saw its voteshare drop to a mere 25%. Scandals involving its candidates during thecampaign and strategic coordination failures contributed to the unsatisfac-tory result of the democrats.

The 2008 election brought more fragmentation to the LegCo. TheSCNPC verdict of December 2007, which ruled out universal suffrage for2012, made it difcult for the democrats to use the universal suffrage issue

as the campaign issue for the 2008 election. They instead, riding on recentpolitical scandals and public dissatisfaction against government-businesscollusion, emphasized that the pro-democracy parties were an importantforce to check the government. Although the DAB got a resounding victoryin the 2007 District Councils elections, the democrats more or less heldtheir turf in the 2008 LegCo election, with the help of strategic voting bytheir supporters. They retained about 57% of the votes and won 19 directlyelected seats out of the 30.


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174 Ma Ngok

Conclusion

Party politics in Hong Kong began in the 1990s when the regime openedup for partial elections. However, it largely failed to have signicant devel-opments after 1997 due to the slow political development in Hong Kong.The non-elected nature of the HKSAR government and the weakness ofthe legislature prove disincentives for party development, while the narrowfranchises of the FC and EC systems also do not help. By 2010, parties inHong Kong are fraught with their own internal problems of succession,

resources, and development, with many citizens disappointed with the per-formance of the parties.Elections after 1997 have gradually brought about a stable balance of

power between the two political camps in Hong Kong. Elections since 1991showed that the democrats consistently got about 60% of the votes andthe conservatives 3035% in the direct election part, and the democratsare largely unable to lay their hands on the FC seats that are elected bycorporate voting. This means the conservative camp will continue to holda majority in the LegCo, with the democrats in a minority of 2125 votes.

This creates a paradox for HKSAR governance: the political groupingthat enjoys majority public opinion support is rendered in a permanentminority, which will continue to create pressures for electoral and politicalreform for years to come.

Box 8.1 Factionalism

Factions usually means organized sub-groups with the same political tenden-cies or inclinations within a political party. The degree of organization or dis-

cipline of factions can vary from party to party and from country to country.Factionalism refers to the state in which parties have different factions, andstruggles and bargaining between different parties become a major factor ofdecision-making within the political parties.

Box 8.2 Proportional representation system

A proportional representation system is an electoral system that allocates seats

roughly according to the proportion of votes obtained by parties/groups/lists.A party that obtains 20% of the votes in the election is supposed to get about20% of the elected seats under proportional representation.


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Box 8.3 Catch-all parties

Catch-all parties are parties that try to appeal to a wide range of support fromvarious social classes or social sectors, instead of representing only one class orsector.

Box 8.4 Largest Remainder Formula with a Hare quota

The Largest Remainder Formula is a method to calculate how the last seats are

to be allocated under a proportional representation system. Under this system,the seats are rst awarded to the parties/lists that get above the electoral quota(usually Hare or Droop quota), and the remaining seats are awarded to thosewho have the most remaining votes after the votes needed to reach the quotaare counted. Using the Hare quota, if a constituency elects N candidates, thequota is 1/N. This is the quota required of the party/list to win a seat. Thatmeans a party/list will win one seat if it has 1/N of the votes, two seats if ithas 2/N of the votes, and so on. The seat allocation for the Hong Kong Islanddistrict in the 2004 LegCo election, where there were six seats to be allocated intotal, provides a good example.

DP DAB Eu andHo

RitaFan

TsangKin-shing

Vote share 36.98% 20.95% 20.72% 18.42% 1.9%

Hare quota 16.67% 16.67% 16.67% 16.67% 16.67%

Seat obtained via quota 2 1 1 1 0

Remainder 3.65% 4.18% 3.98% 1.7% 1.49%

Seats obtained by

remainder

0 1 0 0 0

Total seats 2 2 1 1 0

Questions

1. What were the major factors that led to the growth of political parties

in the early 1990s?2. What are the major differences in positions among political parties inHong Kong?

3. What are the factors that hinder further development of politicalparties in Hong Kong? What can the Hong Kong government do topromote party development in Hong Kong?

4. What are the major features of the electoral system of Hong Kong?


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176 Ma Ngok

5. Compare the elections under the FC and the EC with that of directelections. How are the elections different? Why are they different? Towhat extent are these differences a result of the different nature ofelectoral systems?

6. If you were given the task to reform the electoral system in Hong Kong,what would you do? What are the major problems with the currentsystem?

References

Cheng, J 2005, Hong Kongs Democrats Stumble,Journal of Democracy, vol. 16, no.1, pp. 13852.

Choy, CK 2002, The Divisive Effect of the Proportional Representation System:From Inter-party Competition to Intra-party Competition, in HC Kuan, SKLau & TKY Wong (eds), Out of the Shadow of 1997? The Legislative Council Electionin the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, The Chinese University Press,Hong Kong, pp. 99123.

Lam, J 1997, Party Politics in Hong Kong During the Political Transition,AmericanAsian Review,vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 7195.

Lau, SK & Kuan, HC 2000, Partial Democratization, Foundation Moment andPolitical Parties in Hong Kong, The China Quarterly, vol. 163, pp. 70520.Lau, SK & Kuan, HC 2002, Hong Kongs Stunted Political Party System,The China

Quarterly,vol. 172, pp. 101028.Louie, KS 1992, Politicians, Political Parties and the Legislative Council, in

J Cheng & P Kwong (eds), The Other Hong Kong Report 1992, The ChineseUniversity Press, Hong Kong, pp. 5378.

Ma, N 2001, The Decline of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong: The SecondLegislative Council Election in HKSAR, Asian Survey, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 56483.

Ma, N 2005, Democracy at a Stalemate: The Third Legislative Elections in Hong

Kong, China Perspectives, vol. 57, pp. 4049.Ma, N & Choy, CK 1999a, The Evolution of the Electoral System and Party Politics

in Hong Kong, Issues and Studies, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 16794.Ma, N & Choy, CK 1999b, Party Competition Patterns: The 1995 and 1998

Campaigns Compared, in HC Kuan, SK Lau, KS Louie & TKY Wong (eds),Power Transfer and Electoral Politics: The First Legislative Elections in the Hong KongSpecial Administrative Region, The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, pp.71104.

Ma, N & Choy, CK 2003, Political Consequences of Electoral Systems: The Hong KongProportional Representation System (

), in Chinese, City University of Hong Kong Press, Hong Kong.

Useful websites

Association for Democracy and Peoples Livelihood http://www.adpl.org.hk/


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Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong http://www.dab.org.hk/hk/content/home.doThe Democratic Party http://www.dphk.org/The Electoral Affairs Commission http://www.info.gov.hk/eac/Hong Kong University Public Opinion Poll (HKUPOP) http://hkupop.hku.hk/Liberal Party

http://www.liberal.org.hk/

Public Governance Programme, Lingnan Universityhttp://www.ln.edu.hk/pgp/level2/pgp-sur-f.htmRegistration and Electoral Ofce

http://www.info.gov.hk/reo/

Further reading

Lam, J 1997, Party Politics in Hong Kong during the Political Transition,AmericanAsian Review, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 7195. This paper provides a good account ofthe origins of party formation in Hong Kong in the early 1990s. In particular, it

contains adequate information on the historical background and personnel ofvarious political parties formed in the early 1990s.

Lau, SK & Kuan, HC 2000, Partial Democratization, Foundation Moment andPolitical Parties in Hong Kong, The China Quarterly, vol. 163, pp. 70520. Thispaper argues that partial democratization in Hong Kong and the nature of thepolitical transition drove the parties in Hong Kong to focus on ChinaHongKong relations and the issue of democratization as the major concerns. Socialand economic issues were relatively de-emphasized, which led to the shallowsocial roots of the parties in Hong Kong, which in turn had a negative effect onparty development in Hong Kong.

Lau, SK & Kuan, HC 2002, Hong Kongs Stunted Political Party System, TheChina Quarterly, vol. 172, pp. 101028. This paper delineates various factorsthat hindered party development in Hong Kong, including Beijings unfavour-able attitude, limited political space, non-existence of a ruling party, and theabsence of a cross-class coalition.

Ma, N 2005, Democracy at a Stalemate: The Third Legislative Elections in HongKong, China Perspectives, vol. 57, pp. 4049. This paper captures the effect ofthe 2004 Legislative Council elections on the political parties and politicaldevelopment in Hong Kong. In particular, it addresses the changing politicalcleavages and a trend of pluralization in Hong Kongs politics.

Ma, N & Choy, CK 2003, Political Consequences of Electoral Systems: The Hong KongProportional Representation System (), in Chinese, City University of Hong Kong Press, Hong Kong. This bookhas a comprehensive review of the evolution of electoral system in Hong Kong.By comparing the 1995, 1998, and 2000 campaigns, the book also points outthe electoral systems various impacts on political and party development inHong Kong.


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