Democratic Party (Hong Kong)
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The Democratic Party (Traditional Chinese: 民主黨; pinyin: mín zhǔ dǎng; Jyutping: man4 zyu2 dong2) is a pro-democracy and liberal political party in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. It was established on October 2, 1994. The party is currently headed by Chairman Lee Wing Tat, and has 603 ordinary members and 26 associate members as of August 2006.
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[edit] Party Beliefs
From the outset, the party supported the restoration of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong. Apart from that, the party's stance on Hong Kong's future development differs with pro-Beijing parties. It believes Hong Kong must develop more democratic institutions and preserve freedoms and human rights in order to achieve prosperity.
The party proposed policies on various areas of governance through designated spokespersons, including:
- Amendment of the Basic Law to achieve more democracy and safeguard freedoms, while achieving closer economic cooperation with Mainland China.
- Protection of human rights.
- Maintain Hong Kong's status as an international finance and trade centre and improve its economic infrastructure (concrete details not given), as well as a more flexible way to control public expenditure.
- Better monitoring of public services and utilities (i.e. more accountability), and strengthened measures to protect the environment.
- More resources for education, with less vague policies.
- Reasonable (i.e. larger) share of economic achievements by the employee for the employee, and increased involvement by the Government to protect labour laws in accordance with social needs.
- Adopt measures to regulate property prices from fluctuation, and provide adequate public housing
- Increase spending on social welfare.
- Universal suffrage by 2007/8 (but since Dec 2005, 2012).
Overall, the Democratic Party advocates economic policies [1] pretty close to "liberalism" in the sense of John Rawls(rather than, say, ofNozick or Friedrich Hayek, as commonly accepted outside North America), in sharp contrast with the traditional radical free-market orientation of Hong Kong. However, this point is rarely mentioned in the speeches held by party members during their trips abroad to seek political support. The party's position on social or cultural issues is not well-defined but verges on the conservative, partly due to sizeable support from Catholic constituents. In a way that may seem contradictory to traditional liberal ideology, the party generally opposes the legalization of commercial sex or gambling operations.
[edit] History
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| Chairman: | Lee Wing Tat |
| Vice Chairmen: | Albert Ho Chan King Ming |
| Secretary: | Cheung Yin Tung |
| Founded: | 1994 |
| Headquarters: |
4/F |
| District Councillors | 78 |
| Legislative Councillors | 9 |
| Political ideology: | liberal; liberal democracy |
| Website: | Democratic Party |
[edit] Patten Period, 1994-1997
The Democratic Party was formed with the merger of the two largest pro-democracy political groups at the time, the United Democrats of Hong Kong which was formed in April 1990, and the Meeting Point which was formed in 1983. It was the first group to formally consider itself a political party in Hong Kong.
Before the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the UK to the People's Republic of China in July 1997, the DP was the largest party - following the earlier success of the pro-democracy camp in the 1991 LegCo election, the party won 19 seats in the 1995 Legislative Council (LegCo) election.
The popularity of the party principally rose from its position towards the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, for which it had solemnly condemned the Chinese Government. In the run-up to 1997, with widespread sentiment of uncertainty then towards the future of Hong Kong under Chinese rule, the party supported the controversial package of political reform bought about by the last British colonial Hong Kong Governor, Chris Patten.
The party's stance conflicted with the PRC government's, which, for a while, earned the party more popularity and recognition both locally and overseas. The founder and then party chairman, Mr. Martin Lee Chu-ming, became well-known internationally in the run-up to reunification as a human rights and democracy fighter, and won a number of international human rights awards.
The party refused to join the Provisional Legislative Council established in December 1996 in protest of its formation. As the body became the official legislature of Hong Kong SAR after reunification, the party lost all its seats in the legislature, until the first LegCo election of the HKSAR on 24 May 1998.
[edit] Post-1997
Under the proportional representation system which the HKSAR Government considered a better system in representing the spectrum of views of the community, the party secured 12 out of 60 seats in the first LegCo election in 1998, including 9 out of 20 seats from geographical constituencies, where the party got 43% of the votes.
During this period, the party suffered from a decline in popularity. Some analysis attributed this to increased concerns on economic issues as opposed to political ones, and the unpopular position of the party on issues such as the Right of Abode issue in 1999. In the second LegCo election two years later in 2000, the vote share of the party from geographical constituencies dropped to 35%, and the party secured 9 out of the 24 directly elected seats. Its total number of seats in LegCo remained at 12.
Meanwhile, the party was plagued with internal fragmentation, further affecting its image. Lau Chin Shek was expelled from the party in 2000. LegCo member Mr. Chan Wai-yip quit the party in December 2001 following the succession of former Chairman Martin Lee by Yeung Sum, leaving the party with 11 seats in the LegCo. In April 2002, some members in the "Young Turks" camp within the party left and joined The Frontier.
The cause of such factionalism arose from the political and economic orientations of the party platform. On the political side, some "Young Turks" of the party considered that the party leaders were too eager to establish a "dialogue" with Beijing and the HKSAR Government, and were not confrontational enough vis-a-vis the authorities. Some also considered the party too "middle-class"-oriented and distant from the grass-roots on labour issues, such as proposed legislation on minimum wage which the party did not support.
2002 and 2003 saw a rebound in popularity, largely due to the Article 23 issue and the low popularity of the HKSAR Government headed by Tung Chee Hwa. The party benefited from its opposition standpoint, and achieved an impressive victory in the 2003 District Council election, claiming 92 seats compared with 86 in the last election in 1999.
In 2004, the popularity of other groups and individuals in the pro-democratic camp (such as members of the Article 45 Concern Group and Albert Cheng), together with the emergence of scandals of two of the party's candidates in the LegCo election this year, began to wane. As a result, the Democratic Party only won 9 seats (7 in geographical constituencies and 2 in functional constituencies) overall, becoming the third largest party in LegCo behind the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (12) and the Liberal Party (10). It is alleged that the tactics used by the party to secure votes in the geographical constituency of Hong Kong Island ironically led to the defeat of another democratic camp candidate, Cyd Ho, causing further dissatisfaction among democratic camp supporters within the party.
Starting from early 2005, 24 members had quit the party, including district councillor Fong Chan Bong (forced by party) and Lau Tak Cheung. 12 district councillors also left the party. A district counciullor also died in a car accident. The number of district councillors decreased by 13 to 79.
In March, 2006, the Mainstream faction alleged that some senior members were involved in spying activities of China. The "suspects" were all Young Turks members including vice-chairman Chan King Ming and Gary Fan. Tension between the two factions increased.
The Civic Party was established in March, 2006. It is not clear that whether the DP will lose its members to the CP.
[edit] Factions
[edit] Mainstream Camp
The "Mainstream Camp" is the leading faction of the party since the party found in 1994. It is led by Lee Wing Tat. It composed of both Meeting Point members (those who're not moderate) and United Democrats. It has 7 Legco members. It supports the line of Legislative Council, cross-classes direction and limited communication with the Communist Party of China.
[edit] Young Turks
The "Young Turks" is the main opposition faction inside the party. It is led by Gary Fan. It has 1 Legco member. It is mainly formed by former student leaders such as HKFS ex-chairman Cheung Yin Tung and The Hong Kong University Students' Union ex-chairman Fung Wai Kwong. It called for the separation of power between party legislators and party leaders. It opted for a more radical line than the Mainstream Camp. Other important members include Cheng Kar Foo and Chan King Ming (party-vice chairman). In 1997, some of the Young Turks members joined the Frontier.
[edit] Unionists
The Unionists or the Labours was a faction formed by union leaders. They included Lau Chin-shek and Lee Cheuk-yan. They are leaders of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions. The unionists mainly expelled or quit the party.
[edit] Meeting Point Camp
The "Meeting Point Camp" refers to moderate Democrats who were from the Meeting Point. It has 1 Legco member.
[edit] List of chairmen:
- Martin Lee (1994-2002)
- Yeung Sum (2002-2004)
- Lee Wing Tat (2004-)
[edit] See also
- Liberalism
- Contributions to liberal theory
- Liberalism worldwide
- List of liberal parties
- Liberal democracy
[edit] External link
- (English)Democratic Party official site
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| Pro-democracy: | Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) | Civic Party (CP) | Democratic Party (DP) | Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) | League of Social Democrats | Neighbourhood and Workers Service Centre (NWSC) | The Frontier | |||
| Pro-Beijing / Pro-government: | Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) | Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU) | Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions (FLU) | Liberal Party (LP) | The Alliance | |||
| * Represented in the Legislative Council | ||||
