2023-05-29 11:47:54
The Hong Kong political landscape continues to shrink. The Civic Party, one of the most prominent formations of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong for more than ten years, voted Saturday, May 27 its self-dissolution, for lack of being able to acquire a direction after the repression suffered by its members since the imposition of the national security law by Beijing in June 2020.
Nicknamed “the party of lawyers”, as many of its founders worked in the legal field, the Civic Party was established in 2006 to promote democratization in Hong Kong. It was one of the few opposition groups to survive despite the crackdown under the national security law.
Since then, more no member from the democratic camp did not sit in the local parliament. And on Saturday, 30 of the 31 members of the party’s extraordinary general assembly voted to voluntarily cease activities, a process that will take about a month.
The Civic Party no longer has any MPs in Parliament
“After all the procedures, the Civic Party will disappear from the Earth”, said its co-founding president Alan Leong, 65, a well-known figure in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong since the territory was returned to China by the United Kingdom in 1997. In 2007, he was the first candidate – and the only one so far – to run for Hong Kong’s chief executive without Beijing’s backing. Unsurprisingly, he had lost. But his party had since then aimed to become a force “of government”and not just opposition.
At the height of its popularity, the Civic Party ranked second in Hong Kong’s opposition, winning six seats in the 2012 Legislative Council election, half of whose members were then directly elected for the first time since 1997. “We had our eyes fixed on the landmark of democracy”said Alan Leong in the farewell letter to the city published on Saturday by his party. “History knows cycles. (…) Even though the Civic Party hasn’t accomplished everything we set out to do, there is a time for everything. »
Many deputies are in prison
Hong Kong, an important financial center, experienced in 2019 imposing pro-democracy demonstrations, sometimes violent. Half a dozen members of the Civic Party were indicted for having taken part in it and having undertaken to raise funds for the demonstrators.
They had also taken part in unofficial primary elections inside the pro-democracy camp. These had been considered by the authorities as a risk to national security, and four leaders were charged with “conspiracy to subvert”.
By the end of 2021, the Civic Party had lost the five seats it held in the Legislative Council and more than 30 in the district councils, after the authorities put in place a check to ensure that only the “patriots” could present themselves. Albert Lai, another founder of the Civic Party, told Agence France-Presse that the dissolution of his formation “can be seen as a symbol of the end of Hong Kong’s native democracy movement”.
——–
#main #prodemocracy #parties #scuttling