Reform Package Vote: As Expected

The pan-democrats are vindicated in voting down the political reform package

It was a foregone conclusion, but they still had to go through the motions.

The political reform package was voted down, but strangely some 30 pro-establishment lawmakers walked out of the Legislative Council chambers just before the vote was made, with only eight votes for the package.

The pro-Beijing side claimed there was some "miscommunication", saying they were trying to delay the vote by 15 minutes so that rural kingpin leader Lau Wong-fat could make the historic vote.

But Legco President Jasper Tsang Yok-sing went ahead with the vote as more than half the legislators were in the chamber. Twenty eight voted against the package.

Strangely the pro-Beijing lawmakers walk out of the chamber

Lau claimed he was in Kowloon Tong in the morning and was stuck in traffic getting to Admiralty...

But it was expected the political reform package would be voted down, and now the city can breathe a sigh of relief, though what's next no one knows. If the package had been passed, there probably would have been demonstrations and who knows what else.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor must have been very disappointed after all the hard work she put into this "project". How about all the taxpayer money spent on promoting the political reform package with billboards, television commercials and tour buses?

Before the vote, she claimed the government's work on reform had been "open and transparent".

"Our package is also constitutional, lawful and reasonable. It is the best package under the current situation," she said.

Carrie Lam addresses lawmakers before the vote

And that's what people like the pan-democrats don't agree on -- the current situation. How can Hong Kong accept a package like that, where the candidates must be pre-approved by Beijing and a committee of 1,200 people who are also pro-establishment? How is that fair?

She hoped that people would end the divisiveness in the community and move on.

"Society should also look and think in retrospect, about what happened in the last 20 months, and we should lay down our differences... because we still need to work together to solve our economic and livelihood problems. We need to be rational, pragmatic and understanding in solving problems, and we need to communicate in different ways," she said.

We hope she is referring to the government, because it has not listened to everyone in Hong Kong -- it has only chosen to listen to a select few. If it did hear all sides, it would put more effort into solving the laundry list of issues plaguing the city, from the yawning wealth gap, to putting some kind of rent control in place so that businesses and families can survive, to reforming the education system so that kids don't have to do five hours of homework every night, to giving more resources to the working poor and homeless. It is not like the city is in debt.

If the government had tried to solve these problems and made some headway, then maybe -- just maybe people would trust it. But the political reform package is so blatantly flawed in so many ways that one would have to be a fool to think it's something we should "pocket first".

The ball is now in Beijing's court to rethink how it will deal with this demanding child who only wants the best for its people.

The Debate Begins

The police brought in lots of equipment into the Legislative Council yesterday

So it has come to this -- today is the start of the debate in the Legislative Council on the political reform package presented by the government.

If all 70 members use their allotted time of 15 minutes, the vote could happen on Friday.

This morning tensions were high. It was reported 200 police officers were stationed inside Legco in case any radicals planned to storm the building. Legco President Jasper Tsang Yok-sing allowed them in, after the police suggested heightened security would ensure people's safety.

Today pan-democrats presented "no" ballot boxes at Legco

Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki said the presence of police in the building damaged the council's independence, while Civic Party leader Alan Leong said the security checks made him feel like he was boarding a flight.

Meanwhile there are hundreds of people of various stripes camped outside Legco telling lawmakers to either support or vote down the package.

All we can do is wait to see what happens...

Five More Years?!

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has hinted he may run a second term

We're two years away from the elections for the next chief executive of Hong Kong and already incumbent Leung Chun-ying has hinted that he will run again in 2017.

Just before an Executive Council meeting, Leung said: "I would not rule out any possibility. Whether to seek a second term is something [to be considered] in later days".

He added in the meantime he would focus on his work at chief executive and implement his 2012 manifesto.

Leung's comments come weeks after an authoritative pro-establishment source stirred up controversy in Beijing earlier this month, saying Leung would win a second term and also introduce controversial Article 23 national security laws to Hong Kong if the government's political reform package is vetoed in the Legislative Council.

On March 8, a veteran Hong Kong politician who spoke on condition of anonymity said that although pan-democrat lawmakers and activists had called for Leung to step down during the 79-day Occupy movement last year, "the three co-founders of Occupy Central were in fact Leung's biggest election campaign team... Because when Beijing said neither compromise nor bloodshed could happen he really waited 79 days" until the civil disobedience movement ended peacefully.

"It just showed Beijing how obedient he is," the person added. "Beijing wouldn't ask Leung to step down just because he's unpopular with Hong Kong people."

Did you just feel a chill down your back?

The thought of another five more years of Leung after 2017 is not news we want to hear, but it is a strong indicator of what Beijing thinks of him, and of us.

Protesters tried to sabotage things with the Umbrella Movement, but he and China were unmoved, and got the police to do the dirty work for them.

If we're stuck with Leung for another five years, Hong Kong's major social and economic issues will not be resolved, swept under the carpet yet again, only to create even bigger gaps between the rich and the poor, out-of-control property prices and reliance on infrastructure projects to keep the economy going.

Perhaps the only person who could sabotage Leung's chances is his own daughter Chai-yan, whose family drama has already cracked the illusion everyone in the household is just as obedient as he is.

Maybe we should start up a crowdfunding campaign to help fund her ongoing antics at Government House...