NTDTV: Five Hong Kong Legislators Resign to Push for Full Democracy

Five lawmakers resigned from the Hong Kong Legislative Council on Tuesday. Its an effort to force the Chinese regime to allow full democracy in Hong Kong. Their resignations will bring by-elections—and they hope these by-elections will serve as what they call a referendum on democracy.

Hong Kong used to be a British colony, but was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Universal suffrage is guaranteed by Hong Kongs mini-constitution—the Basic Law. But the Chinese regime has repeatedly stalled these democratic reforms.

The five legislators hope to use their resignations to break the stalemate.

The legislators are Alan Leong and Tanya Chan from the Civic Party; and Leung Kwok-hung, Albert Chan and Raymond Wong from the League of Social Democrats. They will contest the resulting by-elections in Hong Kongs five electoral districts.

[Alan Leong, Resigned Legislator]:
"I hope the people will speak out loudly, clearly, in a scientifically quantifiable way to tell both Hong Kong government and Beijing government that we are committed to universal suffrage as soon as possible and abolition of functional constituencies."

Functional constituencies are special interest groups that have special voting power. Currently, half of Hong Kongs legislators are elected directly by these functional constituencies—and on political matters, they mostly side with the Chinese regime.

[Audrey Eu, Civic Party Leader, Referendum Spokeswoman]:
"The purpose of this campaign is to create de facto referendum to allow people through the ballot box to express the determination of abolition of functional constituencies and earlier universal suffrage."

The Chinese regimes Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office warned that such a referendum would pose a "blatant challenge" to Beijing's authority.

Some lawmakers who support the Chinese Communist Party say they will boycott the by-elections. It could leave the Democrats in the awkward position of not having rivals to make their referendum seem legitimate.

The plan for a referendum is revealing a deep divide in local politics.

Many democrats are skeptical that the Chinese regime will ever allow fair, direct voting in Hong Kong.

NTDTV's official YouTube Channel got taken down for some weird reason, so I thought it would be a good time to upload some of their noteworthy videos again and it's also to remind you guys that you can actually still find ALL their programming on their website: http://english.ntdtv.com - So just cause Youtube is probably bowing to China again doesn't mean they are gone - go visit their website, they don't only have news on human rights in China, but have 24 hour programming with live streaming.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• NTDTV
• Five
• Hong
• Kong
• Legislators
• Resign
• to
• Push
• for
• Full
• Democracy