Hong Kong’s democratic road: an interview with Christine Loh

openDemocracy: Was the Legislative Council election of 12 September 2004 a defeat for pro–democracy activists in Hong Kong?

Christine Loh: There was no “defeat”. The pro–democracy camp actually gained three seats in the legislature. The problem was that they got fewer seats than people expected; thus, the media perceived the results as a “loss”. Furthermore, the specific loss of one formerly safe seat due to a poor last–minute campaigning error tarnished the results.

The pro–democracy camp received around 60% of the vote, against about 35% for the other side; an assortment of fringe candidates won the remainder. In short, the pro–democracy side did perform worse strategically than the pro–government camp, but it is not right to use the word “defeat”.

openDemocracy interviewed Christine Loh about the huge wave of pro–democratic sentiment in Hong Kong over the past year; see “Is the Chinese world discovering democracy?” (July 2004)

Christine Loh: There is also the problem that the electoral system delivered a messy conclusion that many feel did not properly reflect voters’ collective will.

The election is organised in two parts. First, there are thirty geographical constituencies, for which candidates were chosen on a directly elected suffrage basis. 55.6% of the electorate, 1.78 million people, turned out to vote for these seats. This was a record in Hong Kong.

The geographical seats are organised on a proportional, non–transferable voting basis, with candidates elected on a list system. In order to elect more candidates, a party must aim not just to receive the highest number of votes possible, but to place its candidates on the list in a way as to optimise their chances of being elected.

Second, there are thirty functional constituencies, where there was a 70% turnout, just over 134,000 people among a total of 192,000 registered voters.

The vast majority of the voters in these functional constituencies belong to ten varied professional groups (such as teachers, lawyers, engineers); the other twenty such constituencies consist of corporate voters (such as banks, insurance companies, stockbrokers, tour operators). So that’s really where the mischief is; it is unusual to give votes to corporations and hard to identify how their voting decisions are made.

The pro–democracy side won eighteen of the thirty geographical–based seats, and only six of the thirty functional seats.

But there’s another catch. Every vote in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on a legislator’s proposed initiative needs a majority among both directly–elected and functional legislators in order to pass. By contrast, any proposal by the executive needs only a straight majority in order to pass. So anything proposed by legislators is far more difficult to get through.

When you add all these things together, the system is designed to make it difficult for legislators to have many initiatives.

openDemocracy: What do you expect to be the consequences of this election?

Christine Loh: First, the pro–democracy camp will be sobered. The result should make its elements reconsider both their election strategy and their organising ability.

Second, all parties now elected will be in the LegCo for the next four years. They’ve made various promises and they now have to make good.

Third, for the first time two members of the fiscally conservative Liberal party were directly elected. Previously, they have had only functional legislators. Alongside the handful of aggressive “socialist” members elected, this might energise political discussion on ideological lines. This would be a new experience for Hong Kong as a whole. Under colonialism such debates were never encouraged but now that Hong Kong has to seek a path to govern itself, these issues need to be argued out.

The Liberal members came through an appointment–based, patronage system under colonial rule. They did not have to go out to the people, explain their ideas and policies. Now that they have entered electoral politics, Hong Kong people might have more opportunity to think through the spectrum of economic and fiscal policies. That would be very good.

openDemocracy: Could the successful democratic election to the LegCo increase pressure for a directly–elected chief executive?

Christine Loh: Yes. Hong Kong is on the path of incremental democracy. The people have become used to voting. It’s become a social norm. And people want their vote to matter more because right now the vote essentially elects a group of legislators who are seen to be in opposition to the government – but we’re not electing the government.

So, from the people’s point of view, there will be growing dissatisfaction that their vote is not mattering as much as it should. To keep such a system, where the public will is repressed, will cause such frustration that it could lead to political instability.

We’re already beginning to see this. A successful candidate in this election, who goes by the nickname Long Hair, is a Trotskyist. He has been a perpetual public demonstrator for the last twenty–five years in Hong Kong. He represents the protest vote, but he actually performed incredibly well at election debates, outshining virtually all the other candidates. This is both amazing in itself and a lesson for politicians.

Some people will use Long Hair’s election for an argument that Hong Kong voters are immature and therefore not ready for more democracy. My argument is that if you don’t give the voters the ultimate right to choose the government, if you only let them choose the opposition, they will choose the opposition! But when you allow them to choose a larger number and variety of candidates they will choose a greater variety of opposition too.

In short, if you design a system where people don’t have the power to elect a government they will not feel they have to be very responsible.

openDemocracy: What is the Beijing government’s longer–term strategy?

Christine Loh: Chinese leaders repeatedly say that what they are most concerned about in promoting democracy is that democracy is messy. You can elect people who might not be very good, or who pitch themselves against each other, and the result is that you won’t get things done. Worse still, democracy can lead to “chaos”.

They very often point to the example of countries – for example in Africa or some of our Asian neighbours like Indonesia – and say: these places have elections and so–called democracy, but they’re not doing very well economically or socially. The Beijing government will conclude that democratic reform must be approached gradually in order to maintain economic and social stability.

In April 2004, Beijing decided that 2007 and 2008 is too soon for Hong Kong to directly elect its chief executive and legislature respectively, even though our constitution allows it. Nevertheless, Beijing has said that it is possible for Hong Kong to have some reform in 2007 and 2008. So there will be a period of discussion in Hong Kong on what that reform might be, and on how to link such reform with measures that take Hong Kong a little further down the road that leads to democracy.

openDemocracy: What relevance, if any, does what happens in Hong Kong have to the rest of China, and why?

Christine Loh: In this particular corner of China, this very small society of 7 million people, when we talk about democratic reform it’s not an abstract concept. It’s for real! We already have elections in Hong Kong.

So, we are very much part of the China story, of China’s own struggle to define a new political system. Hong Kong is a controlled pilot case, even though we are not being allowed to move forward too quickly.

openDemocracy: Does this mean that a sense of Chinese national identity will continue to play a role in people’s sense of what’s possible in elections?

Christine Loh: Beijing’s view about nationalism is that we have to love our country and ensure its social stability so that we can make economic advances; within that context, stability is the overwhelmingly important thing to Chinese leaders.

This interview took place by telephone on 13 September 2004.

openDemocracy: Do you disagree?

Christine Loh: Hong Kong has already achieved a very high level of economic and social stability. People here understand that we have social stability because we have the rule of law, and a good administrative system that is not corrupt. This is part of the social software that we run our society on, part of the social contract that we have with each other. These things reassure us that we can have a quality of life, a high measure of certainty of how things will be.

In China the management system is less well developed. There is less certainty amongst Chinese citizens that society will work in a way that guarantees them a corruption–free, rule of law system that guarantees a good quality of life. In these circumstances the government feels it has to impose a high degree of social and political control.