• Home
• /
• World

Hong Kong lawmakers reject Beijing-backed election plan

Lawmakers spent two days debating the proposal, which would have allowed Hong Kong citizens to vote for the top leader for the first time in 2017.

Pro-democracy lawmakers chant slogans after voting at Legislative Council in Hong Kong. -Reuters

Hong Kong - Hong Kong lawmakers defeated the government’s Beijing-backed election plan on Thursday, vindicating pro-democracy activists who flooded the streets last year in protest but leaving the city’s long-term political future up in the air.

Lawmakers spent two days debating the proposal, which would have allowed Hong Kong citizens to vote for the top leader for the first time in 2017, but require that all candidates be approved by Beijing.

But the crucial legislature vote ended in a confusing anticlimax when most pro-establishment lawmakers walked out moments before it began. The proposal was rejected after 28 lawmakers, all but one from pro-democracy parties, voted against it. Eight others were in favour and 34 did not cast votes.

Even if the lawmakers had remained, the proposal would have been rejected because the government needed at least 47 of 70 votes for approval.

Outside the legislature, pro-democracy supporters cheered after hearing the result.

“This is the result that we want, so everyone is very happy,” said 19-year-old student Sylvia Leung.

The defeat marks the end of the territory’s most tumultuous year since Beijing took control in 1997. Known for being a stable and prosperous Asian financial centre, Hong Kong has been hit by chaotic and unruly protests since Beijing decreed last summer that it wanted elections to be restricted. Tens of thousands of people, most of them students, took to the streets in response, occupying busy thoroughfares in three neighborhoods for 11 weeks last autumn to protest what they called “fake democracy.”

The defeat raises the prospect of a political stalemate for years to come.

Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam told lawmakers just before the vote that she was “sad and disappointed” knowing that the proposal would be defeated.

“I don’t know when democratisation can be taken forward,” she said. Hong Kong and Beijing officials have said that in the event of a defeat, leaders would continue to be handpicked by a 1,200-member panel of local elites.

Hong Kong is a former British colony that retains its own legal and financial system and civil liberties such as freedom of speech not seen on the mainland. Even during colonial times, residents were unable to choose their leader, then known as the governor, who was dispatched from London.

Hong Kong’s unpopular current leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, said he was “disappointed” with the defeat and signaled that the government would not attempt to restart democratic development during the two years remaining in his term.

“It’s time for the community to move on,” Leung told reporters. “In the coming two years, the Hong Kong government will focus efforts on the various economic development and livelihood issues.”

Pro-democracy leaders vowed to continue fighting for genuine democracy.

“Today is not the end of the democracy movement,” said lawmaker Alan Leong. “Quite the contrary, this is the starting point of another wave of democratic movement.”

Chinese state media blamed radical pro-democracy lawmakers.

“This is a saddening moment in Hong Kong’s path toward democracy,” the nationalist tabloid Global Times opined. “One person, one vote becomes a phantom with the opposition of the pro-democracy legislators. All who cast the no vote might feel smug today but they eventually must face up to their historical duties. History will not judge what they did today to be glorious.”

After two days of heated discussion, the debate came to a bizarre end when most of the pro-establishment lawmakers walked out of the legislature chamber moments before the vote. It was not clear whether it was an attempt to delay the vote, perhaps by depriving it of quorum.

Lawmaker Jeffrey Lam blamed a “communication gap,” explaining that they were waiting for a fellow lawmaker who was ill to return to the chamber. They left even after their request for a 15-minute break was rejected by the legislature president.