Ronny Tong breaking away with grief and indignation: a harbinger of disorders breaking out inside the pan-democratic camp
Lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a Senior Counsel (SC) co-founder of the Civic Party, yesterday quit the Civic Party and announced his resignation from the Legislative Council (Legco), effective from 1 October.
The incident of Ronny Tong's double resignation happened just three days after the political reform package was voted down. This may be said to have dealt quite heavy a blow to the Civic Party and pan-democratic camp, despite the open secret in political circles that Ronny Tong has become increasingly at odds with party leaders Alan Leong Kah-kit and Audrey Eu Yuet-mee over many major issues. Ronny Tong's announcement of his double resignation after all pan-democratic lawmakers pressed down the button against the political reform package is also astonishing news drawing attention in society.
Given his personality, it is just a matter of time for Ronny Tong to break away from the Civic Party. With the same professional background and the same title of SC, Ronny Tong has acted more objectively, with restraint and cool-mindedly during his years of political career, in contrast to Audrey Eu, Alan Leong and several other "democratic barristers" who are swollen with arrogance and full of hot air, easily and readily criticising "one country two systems" and the Basic Law from Western legal point of view and even denying the Mainland's judicial system and judicial reforms. They cannot open their mouth without talking about "democracy" or "human rights", as if "extraterritoriality" still existed nowadays. On the other hand, however, they could have accepted "black gold" from Jimmy Lai Chee-ying in tens of thousands or millions of dollars with their faces remaining untroubled. Given the contrast, unless Ronny Tong also gives away his own conscience and sense of national pride, it is inevitable for him to break away.
In the just-concluded controversy over the political reform, although Ronny Tong eventually cast his vote against the reform proposal, his constant advocate for tolerance and mutual accommodation, communication and dialogue, as well as his known opposition and refusal to participate in the Occupy movement, are all there for everyone to see.
Although Ronny Tong's double resignation is an individual's behaviour, it is a harbinger of the pan-democratic camp falling into the predicament of becoming seriously unfocused, conceptually confused and even falling apart, with its further split and [internal] confrontation imminent.
As a matter of fact, the pan-democratic camp's veto of the political reform package this time can only be described as having won "a Pyrrhic victory". What they have lost or are about to lose is far more than they have won from the voting machine. Among others, strangling the universal suffrage is the "burden" which they have to carry on their backs in their lifetime and can never get rid of.
They have been striving for democracy at least for 30 or 40 years, dating back - as some of them claim - to the British colonial rule in addition to the 18 years since Hong Kong's return to the Motherland. And the "last stop" on the road to pursue democracy certainly is universal suffrage with "one person one vote".
But the fact before our eyes is that, in order to take a political gamble, in order to take the opportunity of the political reform to challenge "one country two systems" and weaken the Central Government's power of governance over Hong Kong, they had assumed a non-compromising position, giving no heed to the August 31 Decision by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) and standing firm on their demand for "nomination by petition". As a result, the 28 lawmakers pressed the veto button on the voting machine to defeat the proposal for the 2017 political reform, but at the same time also to defeat themselves. Now gone is the universal suffrage or "one person one vote", what else can they still pursue for voters from now on? In 2017, the Chief Executive will continue to be elected by 1,200 people, so what can they still say about it? Isn't the "2017 Election Committee" is what they have "striven for"?
Having lost such a piece of "fat meat" of democracy as universal suffrage, some members of the pan-democratic camp are not resigned or willing to be "tied" onto the voting machine. In future, they still have to face the voters, not to mention that they do not want to lose the opportunity of communicating with the SAR and Central Governments. Hence they are bound to rack their brains trying to "make amends for their fault by good deeds" and find a way out. But there are also some other members who regard voting down the political reform package as "not radical enough" and "without a standpoint". They want to "revise the Basic Law", to overthrow the constitutional powers of the Central Government and the NPC Standing Committee, to strive for "indigenous autonomy" and even "independence". In the upcoming district council and Legco elections, the 28 pan-democratic lawmakers vetoing the political reform proposal will become the target of attack of these radicals.
"Give a thief enough rope and he'll hang himself." Having cut themselves off from the Central Government, from voters and from universal suffrage, pan-democrats now are in a blind alley. So it's the right time for Ronny Tong to break away from them.
23 June 2015
