2015-01-07
Pro-democracy lawmakers carrying yellow umbrellas walk out of the legislative chamber, Jan. 7, 2015.
AFP
Pan-democratic lawmakers in Hong Kong raised yellow umbrellas in the city’s legislature on Wednesday in protest as the government announced a second round of public consultations on political reforms in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
Chanting “I want full universal suffrage,” the 24 members of the Legislative Council (Legco) opened yellow umbrellas, the symbol of pro-democracy street protests that lasted for more than two months last year, before walking out.
Hong Kong’s second-in-command Carrie Lam framed the consultation exercise as a public debate on the constitution of the controversial Beijing-approved election committee, which under an Aug. 31 ruling by China’s parliament will vet candidates in the 2017 elections for the city’s chief executive.
She said the reform package approved by Beijing would create a “solid foundation” for further reforms, including fully democratic elections for LegCo.
Umbrellas, yellow ones in particular, became the symbol of the Occupy Central movement for fully democratic elections in 2017 after protesters used them to ward off tear gas and pepper spray attacks from riot police on Sept. 28 that brought hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets in protest.
The Occupy movement has campaigned for Beijing to withdraw its electoral reform plan, which it calls “fake universal suffrage,” and to allow publicly nominated candidates to run for chief executive in 2017.
But Beijing has said any reforms must stick to the Aug. 31 decree, and has slammed international support for the Umbrella Movement, saying that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration is “void” and that China answers to no one in exercising sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Vow to vote against
Pan-democratic politicians, who hold 24 out of 60 LegCo seats, have vowed to vote against the reform package, which will likely be put to a vote in mid-2015.
Lam said the pan-democrats aren’t working in the best interests of Hong Kong’s electorate.
“Anyone refusing to participate in the consultation, or even vowing to veto any constitutional development proposal … is effectively depriving five million eligible voters of their opportunity to elect the chief executive by universal suffrage,” she told lawmakers.
“I call on them to show some political courage and wisdom, and play a positive part in this debate, and not to boycott the consultation or the electoral reform package,” Lam said.
“If the electoral reform proposals for the 2017 chief executive elections aren’t passed, then that will leave no room for a directly elected LegCo in 2020,” she said.
“In that case, we would have to wait until 2022 to directly elect the chief executive, and the development of democracy in Hong Kong will be delayed still further.”
The Hong Kong government is inviting opinions on how the election committee should be constituted, how nominations should work, and other details.
